Is it just me, or does the enemy never use naval power to any advantage? I've played two long games to completion on Noble setting right now, and the only real ship usage I've seen is when the enemy uses a transport to drop off some units on my continent. Whenever I attack an enemy city or bombard it from the sea, they just keep their ships sentried or fortified in their cities. Sometimes they will have 3-4 destroyers and a battle ship inside the city doing nothing and I'll be bombarding it with only one destroyer! Never have I been attacked. Kind of takes the fun and challenge out of naval warfare. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe I just need to play at a higher difficulty level?
Enemy Navy AI
- Thread starter Ackkster
- Start date
cleverhandle
King
Let me guess, you're new to the Civ series?Ackkster said:
I found that the difficulty level does affect this a fair bit, but I think there is a greater problem. Even if the AI comes out and you have a good naval battle, what then? After you have reduced a cities % down to zero, and have destroyed the particular nations navy, all those lovely destroyers and battleships are next to useless, with no interaction between them and land based unit, or cities for that matter ( other then the % of course). Huge difference between this and CIV III navy combat, and to somone who loved trying to gain naval supremercy in CIV III, a major dissappointment in CIV 4.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
I feel the AI uses it's navy reasonably well on higher levels (I'm only up to Monarch though) - both for invasions, where it finally brings sufficient units, and for pillaging sea resources.
One annoying AI stupidity which remains - this could certainly be done better, Firaxis! - is leaving their ships (and workers as well!) in a city that's under attack!
How utterly stupid - all the time in the world to save their ships and workers from the besieged city and they just stay sitting there until they are destroyed/captured!
One annoying AI stupidity which remains - this could certainly be done better, Firaxis! - is leaving their ships (and workers as well!) in a city that's under attack!
How utterly stupid - all the time in the world to save their ships and workers from the besieged city and they just stay sitting there until they are destroyed/captured!
Yep one of my biggest gripes with Civ 4 is the fact that I can not damage sea units with Art. nore can sea units damage land units at all. Sure takes away from navel power and the real need for a strong navy.
By the way I have seen the AI use carriers well, but outside of destroying fishing nets etc. they do little with their naval forces.
By the way I have seen the AI use carriers well, but outside of destroying fishing nets etc. they do little with their naval forces.
I find that all three components (air/land/sea) is important. If they rule the seas, you will not be able to defend against an invasion. If they rule the skies, they will pillage you to death. If they rule the land, well you're just screwed. In my current game (2250 AD), I attacked the enemy and in reply he sent 6 escorted carriers, all with 2-3 destroyers, in separate groups, and a large number of battleships, some of which escorted troop transports. So, yes, I think this is exactly what a human player would do. The 'stuck in city' thing must be a bug, I've seen it too, it's pretty stupid. At one point I took a city with 6 fighters and 6 destroyers inside it.
Navy allow you to do some sneak attacks, the problem in single player is that the AI will always put alot of defenders in its capital and nearly the same amount in any other city, which defeats the point of trying to sneak past the border with navy.
SlayerofDeitys
Chieftain
cleverhandle said:Let me guess, you're new to the Civ series?
I laughed till I cried 
Based on a game I played today, I can come up with another reason the AI doesn't seem to use navy that much. I was on the same rather small continent with the Incas. I had a big tech advantage over them, which included flight. So, I took advantage of this and air-strike(d?) the ____ out of his cities. A little bit later, I attempted to bombard his city defenses, and got a message: 'your fighter has been intercepted by an enemy destroyer'. I found this somewhat smart because since the AI couldnt stop my fighters from the air, they parked ships in their coastal cities to use that air-defense bonus.
Smart huh?
Smart huh?
Ai is pretty dumb, but this is for some random reason. I have played on prince and emperor and the ennemy sometimes hides his naval units. Usually it is when you have a complete supremacy over the sea. (Which is smart). However the Destroyer problem (one destroyr nagging a city full of battleships) should be solved.
parachute4u
Warlord
Nilrim said:
Enemy navy can starve coastal cities. If there is a ship anywhere near a coastal city, the city cannot use its seatiles anymore. Happened to me. Annoyed me like hell.
And it is possible to take a AI city out from the sea. You need :
1 submarine
2 transports
8 marines
some Battleships and destroyers.
Sign a cease fire, scout the city far away from the front line, break the truce, bomb the cultural defenses, send the marines. 3 or 4 infantry without cultural defense is no match to anti-gunpowder marines. Prepare to meet resistance after you landed.
Brutus2
King
The only time that I have seen the AI use ships wisely is to pillage sea resources. I was at war with Spain and I had much greater land units but no navy. Spain kept sending frigates and galleons over to pillage my seafood and sending my coostal cities into starvation. So I roll out a few Ironclads thinking I will get revenge. The AI was very good at using the higher movement point of the wooden ships to move in, pillage and move as far away as possible (or out to sea) so my slow moving ironclad could not catch them. In the end I just started parking my ironclads on the sea resources and leaving them there.
One thing that really annoyed the heck out of me is bombing ships. In one late game I had far superior units but France decides to send a big invasion force across a lake to invade me with Frigates and Galleons. So I send out my Bombers thinking I will sink them before they land since I had no ships in the lake. Well, my bombers destroyed the first ship and I then see land units sitting on the lake. I had more bombers available but was not allowed to bomb anymore. On the next turn the stack continued to move and landed its troops. Basically I was only allowed to destroy one ship in the stack (which was not a transport ship), and then the rest of the ships were safe to continue on their next turn. If I have more bombers available I should be allowed to keep bombing until I sink all the ships. Instead, I only was allowed to sink the escort ship and all the transports continued untouched on the next turn.
One thing that really annoyed the heck out of me is bombing ships. In one late game I had far superior units but France decides to send a big invasion force across a lake to invade me with Frigates and Galleons. So I send out my Bombers thinking I will sink them before they land since I had no ships in the lake. Well, my bombers destroyed the first ship and I then see land units sitting on the lake. I had more bombers available but was not allowed to bomb anymore. On the next turn the stack continued to move and landed its troops. Basically I was only allowed to destroy one ship in the stack (which was not a transport ship), and then the rest of the ships were safe to continue on their next turn. If I have more bombers available I should be allowed to keep bombing until I sink all the ships. Instead, I only was allowed to sink the escort ship and all the transports continued untouched on the next turn.
Jurph
Chieftain
Brutus2 said:
Whoa! This must be a new feature in CivIV. I thought seafood was a "terrain resource", and stayed around indefinitely. Are they somehow able to kill off the terrain bonus with a military unit? This seems deeply unsporting -- like Sherman's army burning and then SALTING Atlanta.
What is the benefit to the attacker? Surely it's not just dogs-in-a-manger "if I can't have it nobody can." Why not leave the resource intact and capture the city?
Sexton
Keeping the Books
Jurph said:
Please! Ofcourse Brutus ment that his enemy pillaged the improvements Brute had build on the seafood resources. Just like pillaging the mine on a gold resource...
Brutus2
King
Sexton said:
Yes, sorry. I guess I should have been more clear. They were pillaging the fishing boats that were working the crabs, fish, whales, etc. I tried using Ironclads in a sort of "zone defense" to protect the second set of fishing boats I sent out but the higher movement rate of the wooden ships allowed him to move in, pillage and move away or out to sea again before my slow moving Ironclads could catch him, which is what I thought was a sign of some good strategy on the AI's part. In the end, I decided to build one Iron clad for each and every fishing boat and just park the Iron clad on the resource.
This was actually a good idea because as a Finincial Civ I always had a good sized treasurey and was soon able to upgrade all those Ironclads to Destroyers! Sure was nice to have a new Destroyer every turn without tying up my cities to build them!
Sexton
Keeping the Books
parachute4u said:Enemy navy can starve coastal cities. If there is a ship anywhere near a coastal city, the city cannot use its seatiles anymore. Happened to me. Annoyed me like hell.
Well i think that surely is effective as heck... Or am I misunderstanding this. Is it enough for the ship to just idle there or do you mean that the one ship can first pillage the improvements and then just destroy the new ones you might build?
What I would like to see is an ability to blockade coastal cities with just one war ship (galley or what ever). I mean it certainly sounds logical to me that if your enemy had even a single ship menacing the waters outside your city that would be enough to disable you from trading (to that city) via sea trade routes...
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