Increasing Naval Transport Capacity to Boost AI Invasions?

[SayHayKid]

The AI is really weak at naval invasions, often sending one ship, at least in the first couple of ages, for an invasion. Has anybody tried doubling (or even more) the transport capacity (especially in the first two eras)? I guess the flip side is that it will make human invasions even easier as we will still build more ships, and have a greater invasion force, but it seems like it would make the AI invasions something we might have to consider.

 

[Predator145]

The AI is really weak at naval invasions, often sending one ship, at least in the first couple of ages, for an invasion. Has anybody tried doubling (or even more) the transport capacity (especially in the first two eras)? I guess the flip side is that it will make human invasions even easier as we will still build more ships, and have a greater invasion force, but it seems like it would make the AI invasions something we might have to consider.

The AI rarely loads up a transport to its maximal capacity. So you're likely to boost the human player since they now have to spend less shields on their well escorted transports.

 

[timerover51]

The AI is really weak at naval invasions, often sending one ship, at least in the first couple of ages, for an invasion. Has anybody tried doubling (or even more) the transport capacity (especially in the first two eras)? I guess the flip side is that it will make human invasions even easier as we will still build more ships, and have a greater invasion force, but it seems like it would make the AI invasions something we might have to consider.

I have boosted the Industrial Age transport to as high as 10 units. The AI still only uses it for 2 or 3 units. I have no idea why that happens.

 

[Arexander]

From what I've read over the years on the forum, the general consensus is that the AI can't plan a proper naval invasion since it only considers strategies for each unit separately rather than on an overall scale. This means that the unit only gets loaded into a transport if they happen to enter or be in a city where the transport is, and then that transport might get an order to move out since it has units in it, meaning no more units can get into it since it already set out.

 

[Predator145]

From what I've read over the years on the forum, the general consensus is that the AI can't plan a proper naval invasion since it only considers strategies for each unit separately rather than on an overall scale. This means that the unit only gets loaded into a transport if they happen to enter or be in a city where the transport is, and then that transport might get an order to move out since it has units in it, meaning no more units can get into it since it already set out.

So the answer would be for the AI to have more transport ships around? The more ships, the more units will be sent? Also, the harder it is for the human player to intercept and sink them. This coupled with amph. atk units and modding out those silly outposts can force the human to dedicate quite a chunk of their defense on guarding the coastline.

 

[SayHayKid]

So the answer would be for the AI to have more transport ships around? The more ships, the more units will be sent? Also, the harder it is for the human player to intercept and sink them. This coupled with amph. atk units and modding out those silly outposts can force the human to dedicate quite a chunk of their defense on guarding the coastline.

I removed outpusts, radar towers, and airfields. Building outposts to block invasion is lame and the AI doesn't use the other two. I introduced amphibious infantry earlier (at the end of the 2nd era), but maybe to make AI invasions more challenging I should do like RARR and make units starting all the way back with the warrior amphibious, Though then what role does the Marine have?

 

[vmxa]

They dropped the transport from 8 to 6 for a reason. My guess was the larger capacity favored the human.

 

[Predator145]

I removed outpusts, radar towers, and airfields. Building outposts to block invasion is lame and the AI doesn't use the other two. I introduced amphibious infantry earlier (at the end of the 2nd era), but maybe to make AI invasions more challenging I should do like RARR and make units starting all the way back with the warrior amphibious, Though then what role does the Marine have?

Marines can be the upgrade line for swords and archers. They can play the amph attacker that only requires 1 resource to build.

 

[Goldflash]

I'm wondering what to do with Transports myself. It seems like there's not much one can do to make the AI use them better, so why not make them stronger for the player? The AI can certainly make doomstacks on it's one continents, especially at higher difficulty, so I'm thinking of giving lagte came transports a huge capacity to make it easier to naval invade, for the player.

 

[timerover51]

I'm wondering what to do with Transports myself. It seems like there's not much one can do to make the AI use them better, so why not make them stronger for the player? The AI can certainly make doomstacks on it's one continents, especially at higher difficulty, so I'm thinking of giving lagte came transports a huge capacity to make it easier to naval invade, for the player.

I have done that, increasing the Transports to carry 10 units, allowing for 2 increased size armies, or a Settler, two Workers, and 7 military units as guards. I have gone higher in Theov's mod with the Ocean Liner, but allow only Foot Units to be carried.

 

[timerover51]

Marines can be the upgrade line for swords and archers. They can play the amph attacker that only requires 1 resource to build.

I have the Berserker with amphibious capability, along with the Crusader in Conquests. The Berserker upgrades to the Marine. The Crusader stays a Crusader. I have boosted the hitpoints ad combat data of the Crusader.

 

[Fergei]

The AI is really weak at naval invasions, often sending one ship, at least in the first couple of ages, for an invasion. Has anybody tried doubling (or even more) the transport capacity (especially in the first two eras)? I guess the flip side is that it will make human invasions even easier as we will still build more ships, and have a greater invasion force, but it seems like it would make the AI invasions something we might have to consider.

Yes. I think I stole it from another player. Galley capacity of 3 and increases of 2-4 in capacity for all later units. AI much more likely to have successful naval based assaults. In my most recent game Ghandi landed about 10 elephants and a couple of other units from what appeared to be 2x galleon and a below average AI Civ stuck on an island stole a city from the number 1 AI and held it for 5 turns. Things that would simply not happen with default settings. Highly recommended.

The human can always stick to default capacity limitations if they feel it can be abused.

 

[Alekseyev_]

The best naval invasions I remember were in the The Rood and the Dragon scenario by Plotinus. The Viking invader civs there have very cheap, very fast transports that IIRC double as escorts. So I think greatly decreasing transport cost (and either using C3X' no escort needed feature or reducing the cost of warships too) would help the AI with always finding a transport for its few eligible assault units per city.

 

[robotlincoln]

If you increase naval transport capacity, greatly increase ship speed (12+ for medieval, 18+ for industrial, 20+ for modern), lower prod cost, strongly perfume transports so the AI builds a lot of them (+60 or so), and set minimum escort to 1, the AI can use them well enough to conquer other AIs on other continents. If the top AI is ahead of the player, it can even pose a beyond-nuisance risk to the player. I also altered Frigates and Destroyers to carry 1 foot unit and created Medieval and Industrial-era Marine units, which lets the AI do opportunistic (and annoying) amphibious landings that keep me on my toes.

 

[Predator145]

If you increase naval transport capacity, greatly increase ship speed (12+ for medieval, 18+ for industrial, 20+ for modern), lower prod cost, strongly perfume transports so the AI builds a lot of them (+60 or so), and set minimum escort to 1, the AI can use them well enough to conquer other AIs on other continents. If the top AI is ahead of the player, it can even pose a beyond-nuisance risk to the player. I also altered Frigates and Destroyers to carry 1 foot unit and created Medieval and Industrial-era Marine units, which lets the AI do opportunistic (and annoying) amphibious landings that keep me on my toes.

I'd reduce escort down to zero. The AI rarely ever makes use of a single unit's max capacity. So losing a transport carrying 2-3 units is not an issue if their combat navy is out sinking your ships. And in order for Frigates and Destroyers to be used to carry units by the AI, they'd have to be flagged as Sea Transport. That means the AI would not use them to fight or bombard. The human player on the other hand, will gladly do both.

 

[timerover51]

I have transport set to no escort, with a capacity of 10 units so that I can load two armies, of five units, on them. The AI generally loads 1 unit per transport, although it sometimes loads as many as three. When working in the Pacific in any World War 2 scenario, I give destroyers and cruiser, Japanese if they are separate units, the ability to carry one foot unit. That agrees with what the Japanese actually did historically. Sometime the AI uses it, but normally not. Your experiences may vary depending on what level of difficulty you are playing.

 

[Civinator]

Here are two screenshots of my current CCM 3 game. The Dutch landed with a big tank force near my peaceful city of Punjab. Their transport ships have a capacity of 7 and they were fully filled with deadly weapons. The situation is very tough.

 

[robotlincoln]

Here are two screenshots of my current CCM 3 game. The Dutch landed with a big tank force near my peaceful city of Punjab. Their transport ships have a capacity of 7 and they were fully filled with deadly weapons. The situation is very tough.

View attachment 732989



View attachment 732990

Civinator, can I ask what you did to encourage AI naval transport production and unit diversity? Did you achieve both with Perfume, or did you need to create auto-build improvements too?

 

[Civinator]

Civinator, can I ask what you did to encourage AI naval transport production and unit diversity? Did you achieve both with Perfume, or did you need to create auto-build improvements too?

I created CCM about two decades ago and there was no perfuming available. The simple secret for convincing the AI in building ships is, that you have to set ships cheaper to build, compared to land units. From the start of that mod I additionally used autoproduction in that mod, not only to assure that certain types of units are in the game, but also to limit the number of those units. When the first version of CCM started, that mod has autoproduced pirate ships (and only those autoproduced pirate ships) and a GW that autoproduces luxury liners. Later the autoproduction of cruisers, super dreadnoughts, carriers and submarines was added. Now C3X allows to solve the cruiser/battleship production problem (why should the human player or the AI choose to produce cruisers if they can produce battleships ?) by requiring a special virtual resource in the few cities that can produce battelships.

In the screenshots above, there are no autoproduced ships.

 

[register]

I created CCM about two decades ago and there was no perfuming available. The simple secret for convincing the AI in building ships is, that you have to set ships cheaper to build, compared to land units. From the start of that mod I additionally used autoproduction in that mod, not only to assure that certain types of units are in the game, but also to limit the number of those units. When the first version of CCM started, that mod has autoproduced pirate ships (and only those autoproduced pirate ships) and a GW that autoproduces luxury liners. Later the autoproduction of cruisers, super dreadnoughts, carriers and submarines was added. Now C3X allows to solve the cruiser/battleship production problem (why should the human player or the AI choose to produce cruisers if they can produce battleships ?) by requiring a special virtual resource in the few cities that can produce battelships.

In the screenshots above, there are no autoproduced ships.

Will this method encourage ai to load on transport ship more than one unit? I have tried this method before with ships cheaper than foot units but the maximum number of units ai used for invasions was 2 on naval unit with 4 capacity.