(AI Issue) AI can't handle privateer blockades?

[46852]

I have a save attached where I'm blockading my friend Shaka's capital, Ulundi, with 2 privateers. I've been doing this quite a while now, and Old Boy Shaka hasn't done anything to lift the blockade. Well, he sunk my first privateer I sent roaming his coasts, but after that, nothing. It's not like he hasn't got any navy, he has around 30 caravels and some low tech ships floating in his Royal Marina just 2 squares away from my scurvy pirates, who've been there for decades now...

Seems like the AI is a bit lost with privateers? Privateer blockading seems like a very powerful strategy especially if the AI can't handle the blockades. They're powerful even if the AI would be prepared for them!

Another note, the AI seems awfully backwards techwise compared to me, and the difficulty level is prince... All I've been doing after 1500s is pushing the end turn button and testing out new stuff like corporations and blockades, and the AI hasn't done anything. I was surprised to grab almost all the wonders at the beginning of the game too, I don't recall Warlords 2.08 Prince AI being this soft? Could it be due to strange unit spammage collapsing their economy, like Shaka's Toy Fleet? I'd be afraid of that fleet if it'd do something though

Shaka did an impressive job crushing Mao earlier, but otherwise the AI has been very passive. I've pissed off the Egyptians by razing their capital, but they're just minding their own business


I'll try my next game on Monarch and see how it works out, but it definitely seems to me there's lots of fishy things going on with the new AI.

 

[46852]

Oh another strange thing in my save: Why's Cyrus building Sid's Sushi's executives, when I have the company HQ and all his cities have a branch office?


EDIT: one explanation might be that I just spread a few branches to his cities and he started build the executives before that... dunno.

 

[Mesousa]

I've seen the AI sink a blockading Privateer ... threw Caravel after Caravel at it.

 

[46852]

I've seen the AI sink a blockading Privateer ... threw Caravel after Caravel at it.

Yeah, Shaka did that to my first pirate I sent to blockade his capital. But check the save, my privateers are totally starving Ulundi, and that city is filled with caravels

 

[IronCrown]

Another indication that the AIs behaviour is very erratic. In my first game where I used privateers it was quite the opposite: The attacked AI spammed caravels in great numbers and tried to lift my blockades at any cost. Well, that was a very stupid tactic, because I had a lot of privateers and their caravels had no chance to take them out.

Of course my privateer attack was only a preparation for a massive assault on the AI. When I declared war, it turned out that the AI had very few land units. I think it spent all its hammers on those caravels. Very stupid tactic, it would have been better off losing the sea while better defending the land.

But my point is: The original poster describes the AI staying very passive while I experienced it to be overly aggressive against the privateers. Why would the AI react so differently? It is a sign for being bugged, I think. Like sometimes AIs don't build a single settler or worker, while at other times they play normal and expand rapidly.

 

[46852]

I tested out my save a bit further: I lifted the century-long blockade of Zulu capital and pillaged few of it's seafood resources => Shaka's 30 caravels sunk my pirates immediately. It also turned out that massive fleet was meant to be an invasion force to attack me! He attacked few turns after he sunk my pirates. Musketmen are no match to infantry unfortunately, and my single destroyer sunk all his caravels... not exactly brilliant strategy from Shaka

 

[TK42I]

I noticed something similar in one of my games when I blockaded a rival. He was extremely passive, but kept building caravals in his city despite being at war with a rival who could only access him over land. After a period of time he had created close to 20 caravals.