Carrier bonanza?

[tlaurila]

In my current game I'm fighting Alexander on the other continent. He's somewhat ahead of me in tech. As my fleet of ironclads, escorting my invasion force of infantry and artillery arrived to their shores they clashed with the pride of Alexander's navy ... 2 carriers?!?! Alexander's mighty airforce seems to consist of 1 fighter. (On a side note, kind of silly that you can see where the aircraft are stationed even through the fog of war).

So, could it be that the AI sees the improved strength of the no-resources-demanded carrier and decides he sure needs a large fleet of those? I've never seen the AI use a carrier right, even remotely, so shouldn't we just make the AI not build them?

 

[Ahriman]

I have noticed this. I think they might also get them from military city states?
Blocking the AI from ever building carriers is very blunt but might actually be quite good for gameplay.

I'm playing a game as England, and again it is soooo frustrating how bad the naval AI is. Much worse than the land AI. Whereas you'd think that naval would be easier to code, because there are no terrain issues and much longer movement.

 

[Thalassicus]

Carriers are excluded from the militaristic CS rewards. It's difficult to balance carriers for the AI because if they build none, their airforce is useless for intercontinental invasions. They're usually so bad at such invasions anyway though... I guess I could block carriers completely from the AI.

The longer movement distance for naval units is actually a disadvantage in coding AIs, because there's more possible states for each turn to end in.

 

[Ahriman]

It's difficult to balance carriers for the AI because if they build none, their airforce is useless for intercontinental invasions.

I think their airforce is useless for intercontinental invasions anyway, I've never seen them use a carrier to transport aircraft.

The longer movement distance for naval units is actually a disadvantage in coding AIs, because there's more possible states for each turn to end in.

I understand it means more runtime because there are more options, but it should be easy enough to have an aggressive naval AI that looks for enemies within a radius X and then moves to shoot at them if they are found. At the moment, an AI naval unit often won't move even 2 tiles to shoot at an enemy. More movement means fewer congestion problems, so it should be easier to bring a group of ships to bear on a given enemy (whereas it can be harder for the AI to get, say, archers to move efficiently to fire on a given target, because the order in which they move matters, because one has to move to get out of the way of another).

 

[tlaurila]

I've never seen them use a carrier to transport aircraft.

Me neither.

 

[Txurce]

Carriers are excluded from the militaristic CS rewards. It's difficult to balance carriers for the AI because if they build none, their airforce is useless for intercontinental invasions. They're usually so bad at such invasions anyway though... I guess I could block carriers completely from the AI.

I would do this until the naval AI is sufficiently improved in a patch.