Isn't the AI supposed to be better at naval invasions?

[Murky]

This was only on Prince (a fun practice game) playing as Pericles. About mid-way through the game Shaka declares war out of nowhere and 6 of his Galleon's appear next to a city with only a rifleman in defense. My tech is way ahead of Shaka but he has more units. Instead of landing next to the city, the idiot tries to take a hilled city from the sea with low-tech units. A single Rifleman managed to kill about 7 of his units before he backs down. His unguarded Galleons become easy prey to my much more advanced navy.

 

[KMadCandy]

willem declared war on me yesterday. i saw him coming, i'd been expecting it since he was saying WHEOOHRN and was watching for transports. the turn he declared, the transports reached my continent. but he didn't attack from the ships, and he didn't land them on the forested hill next to the city. i didn't have units on that hill, just a lumbermill. fine landing spot if you ask me, good defensive position for him to take. instead, he just parked his entire stack of ships (transports and defending ships) in the same tile, but didn't attack.

anyway, his army drowned before they ever got the chance to land of course, since i knew he was coming and had my fleet stationed where they could reach whichever direction he headed. putting it all on one tile, okay, maybe he didn't expect me to be able to attack and kill the entire stack. it was a good-size stack and the transports weren't unescorted. but that still doesn't explain why he didn't land the troops. they weren't out of movement; they'd ended the previous turn at sea, which is how i knew where to station my own fleet to be able to reach whichever direction he went (my ships could move farther than his transports). my city wasn't particularly well defended, since i didn't know where he was headed. i was hoping he'd land and i could get backup troops where i needed 'em on my railroads! i'd certainly have put at least some of my guys on the forested hill . maybe he brought nothing but marines and hadn't brought enough whichever-ships to bombard the city to 0% defense? i can't remember and the combat log doesn't say.

that was his only chance to ever go on offense. i of course took the war to his continent; i had troops on the way already. his naval invasion was a complete failure. and this is a future start game because i want to see what late-game war is like when nobody has a tech advantage . well, ramesses and i are building nukes now, so i have another chance. monarch game but i started on a quite nice landmass and used my first GE to get Sid's Sushi. they started on the other continent, it's much bigger but they started really close together, weird. so my population and resources were ridiculous in comparison from early on. as far as production they don't truly have monarch bonuses, and that attack sure shows that the monarch difficulty isn't based on the AI acting any smarter.

 

[Shaded]

This was only on Prince (a fun practice game) playing as Pericles. About mid-way through the game Shaka declares war out of nowhere and 6 of his Galleon's appear next to a city with only a rifleman in defense. My tech is way ahead of Shaka but he has more units. Instead of landing next to the city, the idiot tries to take a hilled city from the sea with low-tech units. A single Rifleman managed to kill about 7 of his units before he backs down. His unguarded Galleons become easy prey to my much more advanced navy.

I think AI did not behave that bad in this situation. If he had landed the units next to the city, you could have the opportunity to reinforce the city from the nearby cities. His only chance to take the city is to attack in the same turn. Otherwise his weaker units would be no match for your reinforced city. He would probably raze it if he could manage to take it, as i would do.

Besides 7 weaker units versus a rifleman is not low odds, even on a hill city.
One lucky shot could have been the end of your city.

 

[TommyTankRush]

The difficulty level does not seem to make your AI opponents any cleverer when it comes to tactics like these. They never land their invasion stacks on advantageous terrain, and frequently waste huge resources on pointless amphibious assaults.

In a future game I was playing on Deity, I had 8 L.4 city defence promoted mech infs, 5 city def cyborgs, some modern armour, some gunships and mobile sams and some mobile artillery in a coastal city. He lost 16 units attacking from 4 full transports - and on the next turn none of my units was even damaged!

 

[cthom]

I think AI did not behave that bad in this situation. If he had landed the units next to the city, you could have the opportunity to reinforce the city from the nearby cities. His only chance to take the city is to attack in the same turn. Otherwise his weaker units would be no match for your reinforced city. He would probably raze it if he could manage to take it, as i would do.

Besides 7 weaker units versus a rifleman is not low odds, even on a hill city.
One lucky shot could have been the end of your city.

yep. it's a big gamble on taking before you re-inforce. i've had this once before, and was happy to accept the promotions for my units. i only lost 2 out of 7 against 8 transports filled with artillery and, incredibly, anti-tank. i had only 1 armour unit. what got me was the use of artillery, instead of all 8 in one go he used one transport at a time- 1 artillery+3 units repeat...