Does the AI do better with Naval invasions?

[k-a-bob]

I've seen that people are saying that it does several things better than it did before - so I was wondering if anyone had experience with them landing large forces (instead of a single warrior)?

 

[lordqarlyn]

I haven't noticed, and I was at war with the French in an archipelago world, but neither of us actually engaged in combat during the war. At the time I was only interested in a defensive war, since there was this huge (for that particular world) unclaimed island I was much more interested in getting colonized before anyone else did than launching an invasion.

Personally I would be interested to see if the AI in Civ 4 will use aircraft carriers. I have yet seen an AI - not even in Hearts of Iron II - that uses aircraft carriers effectively, and the previous Civs they didn't even build them. If they do in Civ 4, the battles are going to be so deadly...

Don

Edit: Forgot to mention that the French never did land any forces on my territory, so I can't really say yet.

 

[Gorbad Ironclaw]

I already read one account of the AI landing armies behind the front line so yes, I do think that it will actually engage in naval invasions in a way that makes sense.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

An AI landed 6 units on my land once. It had 3 ships with 2 units each, and the units landed in 3 different areas so I had to struggle with which one to respond to first.

I hope they use aircraft carriers. That would be so badass.

 

[suspendinlight]

In the one situation where I expected an AI landing, I haven't been impressed. I founded a city on an island which also had an Incan city on it (this island was far from both of our home turf). A while later, I am at war with the Incas and I prompty assemble an invasion force and take over their cities so I control the whole island. Being that I was also at war with the Greeks on the mainland, I had to leave the island relatively undefended hoping that the AI would not be smart enough to take advantage. They didn't; well they tried to send like 3 longbowmen over once but I sunk their Caravel. This was far from their major cities and only on Noble, so hopefully it will be better next time.

 

[GDI]

I haven't had any major naval engagements yet, but the few incidents I have had showed promise. I've had several occasions where I was engaging the AI on one front and had him sneak a galleon around the back of my territory to start pillaging my key strategic resources or to generally be a nuisance. He didn't have the manpower needed to take any cities, but he certainly hurt my infrastructure.

 

[CaptainPOE]

From my experience I would say a HUGE yes. Here is what it did to me in my current game where I am Elizabeth of the British Empire on Noble, the map is a Large Archipelago.

I started and went for Hinduism and was able to found the religion, once my borders expanded I was able to see across the water to a continent to my Northwest and another to my East. Caeser was to the West and Catherine to the North. My religion started to spread to their cities once open borders were established (yes over water ways as I never even stepped foot on there islands!). But Catherine decided to make her people follow the Buddhist faith, and from then on our relations detiorated pretty rapidly.

I had since expanded a good bit and found that I was the only one on my island and that it was a pretty large island, only bad thing was I had NO copper and NO iron and no matter how good my relations were with anyone no one would trade some with me so that severely restricted my military and decided to try and tech my way up to some redcoats. About the time I got redcoats Catherine declared war on me and brought Saladin into the fray with her. Saladin was on the opposite side of Caeser so I bribed him to go to war with Saladin so I wouldn't be bothered with both at once. I then started to build of some defense expecting an attack since she did declare war on me but it never came. So I took it to her and kept ferrying redcoats back and forth to her continent.

I was taking some heavy losses and decided to take some defensive units away from my cities and ship them out. The city that was the least defended was Hastings on my East coast right by my capital of London. Without a source of Iron my navy had fallen behind and I was not able to build frigates, but Catherine was and boy did she ever. She didn't attack with just one or two frigates, it was an entire navy! My caravels and galleons didn't stand a chance and my navy was no more. Then the next thing I knew there was a stack of about 15 units right next to Hastings (and this was even after my rag tag navy somehow managed to destroy at least 4 of her ships). They took Hastings with a small fight and moved onto London. But thankfully I had just learned the tech that allows machine guns to be built and was able to upgrade 3 units (who had city garrison II, and London had 80% defensive bonus). They were able to repel the largest majority of the attack and then I just had to mop up the rest and take back Hastings. The only reason I was able to do fight back was a little bad timing on her part, just ONE more turn and I would have been a goner for good. If I would have lost London that would have taken away my Holy City (and all the profits from that), my greatest production city, I would not have been able to create destroyers and then repel her next invasion (was even bigger than her first) and for the most part she would have just rolled over me since I had neglected city defense for the most part in the Southwest of my island.

 

[Azash]

...on her part, just ONE more turn and I would have...

Where have I heard that one before..?

 

[grzesl]

I'd say yes. Saladin landed 6 units (3 galleys' worth) right next to my holy city and took it. Serves me right for having only an archer and a warrior in it. Wise men said 'protect the holy city'...