[C3C] How can I force the computer to upgrade units?

[Kirejara]

I have currently several small wonders to autoproduce units, that I see as important, but the KI is unwilling to build on its own (as they prefer larger and stronger units, but fail to see the advantage of the unit class - z. B. destroyers can see submarines, but a battleship can not).

Originally I had these small wonders produce a prefactored part, that would have a zero-cost-upgrade to the corresponding unit:

Royal Aircraft Factory = Aircraft Parts > Light Bombers in different flavors (that can be loaded to Carriers unlike "normal" Bombers)
Shipyard (Destroyer = Destroyer hull > Destroyers in different flavors
Shipyard (Dreadnought) = Dreadnought hull > Superdreadnought (Steel) > Large Carrier (Flight)

The flavor Light Bombers and Destroyers can be also build normally.

The last one is an attempt to limit the building of Superdreadnoughts (king unit) and Large Carriers (king unit), so that most fleets would still have a core of the weaker Dreadnoughts (Steel), later Battleships (Massproduction) and later Carriers (Massproduction).

My problem is: It does not work!

The KI build the wonders and then put the parts and hulls into storage. In one Game I took over 15 aircraft parts from one KI alone (meaning the Aircraft Factory was activ for over 75 turns).

So I turned the small wonders to autoproduce instead a weaker version of the unit class (z. B. Four-Stack-Destroyer (6/4/10) instead of the average flavor destroyer (8/6/13).

At least they can use these weaker units and to my surprise they often upgrade these to their "full" version unlike the hulls and parts.

But I would prefer if I could have to have the prefactored parts back in production.

How can I force the KI to upgrade these parts to the full version?

Thanks!

 

[Vuldacon]

Sounds like they Need a Barracks where the Parts are so the parts can be Upgraded.

Consider adding a Great Wonder that when Built, it places a Barracks in every City or set Barracks to Very Low Cost.

 

[Kirejara]

Hi Vuldacon,

the shipyards require a harbour in the city to be build. And harbours are now without maintenance costs (I was tired of getting my trade reputation getting blown, because the KI could not pay the maintenance of their harbour!).

The Royal Aircraft Factory has the attributes of an airport to allow upgrades as it can be build with combustion before airports are available.

Could it be that I have set the aircraft parts and ship hulls to require no support, while the upgraded units require support?

 

[Civinator]

Kirejara, did you give your "unit parts" and hulls a proper AI strategy? In my mods CCM and CCM2 there are many buildings with advanced autoproduction, among them aircraft and shiphulls, too - and all seem to work well. The autoproduction facility also has the possibility to upgrade the basic-unit, the upgrade is at zero-costs and the basic unit has a proper working AI strategy, meaning especially that it has the load-flag if this is needed, and is immobile, so it cannot run away from upgrading. The basic units also should have settings to prevent them from being loaded into ships (for example the same as you would use to prevent bombers from landing on carriers) otherwise some nice ctds can happen, especially when the AI tries to unload an immobile unit from a ship.

I cannot say these settings will force the AI to always upgrade the basic-unit, as here I have seen much too much anomalities from the AI (including the killing of basic-units for settlers), but in general such settings in my eyes could be very useful.

 

[Kirejara]

Hi Civinator,

that could be the solution!

I did not give my parts and hulls any AI Strategies as I thought it would be unnessecary, because they are immobile, unloadable and only waiting for their update.

This seems to be the main difference between prefactored parts in CCM and my mess.

I will give the parts and hulls strategies and will test them, but this may take a few days.

 

[Kirejara]

Civinator was right!

Even a non movable crate needs marked checkboxes under AI Strategies.

I have given on a testmap all KI players the Royal Aircraft Factory in its capital and a start in modern times. They all updatet their aircraft parts to their WWI light bomber (as noone has connected an oilfield yet, it is the only update possible).

But I think I will leave the shipyards to the "filler" Dreadnought and Destroyer, as it allows the player to strategical delay its update. They can only be updated once and it can be useful to wait a few turns to update them to a later version with Advanced Flight (Large Carrier) or Smart Weapons (Modern Frigate).

At least for Spain, Netherlands and Mongolia the autoproduced Helgoland Dreadnought is equal in speed and power to their weaker than average Dreadnought (Espana, Nassau and Kawachi).

Thanks a lot!

 

[Vuldacon]

Kirejara... Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner...have been offline.
Glad you have it corrected. Players can Upgrade Units that have no AI Strategy but the AI needs the Strategy checked to Upgrade.

 

[Kirejara]

Hi Vuldacon,

no need for an excuse. You have been helpful too.

Only problem with the aircraft parts is now, that some AI/KI players transfer them to other cities (without Aircraft Factory or Airport), despite being immobile and having their transfer button disabled and then wonders, that they can no longer update them.

I had a similar experience with transport planes without airdrop (the KI simply ignores the missing button and still airdrops units) and airships without transfer (the KI still transfers them as they do with the aircraft parts).

But overall the KI is now able to use their arcraft parts as planned .

 

[Civinator]

Only problem with the aircraft parts is now, that some AI/KI players transfer them to other cities (without Aircraft Factory or Airport), despite being immobile and having their transfer button disabled and then wonders, that they can no longer update them.

After setting aircraft "basic units" not beeing disbandable and not able to land on carriers and even after removing the rebase-option, they should only have a range of 1 to reduce this problem (if you set it to range zero, the aircraft looses its AI strategy). As this setting only reduces that problem, because the rebase range is six times the operating range (if I remember well) and thus the basic unit can still been rebased by the AI in cities 6 tiles away (even with the rebase option removed!) in CCM2 I set all aircraft basic units to be full operable 'training' units with low stats.