Is the navy AI bugged?

[unscratchedfoot]

In my game, the AI ships have never once attacked my ships despite outnumbering me with same type of ships. They do escort transports though, just never ever attack. It's weird and lame. Bug?

 

[Vietcong]

havent noticed it

 

[FenrysWulf]

I've seen a lot of stacks of ships escorting transports. They will always stick with the transport and not attack. It's like a fanatical sense of transport preservation. I don't think it's a bug; that's just where their priorities are.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Fenrys, you're right. The ships are all escorting so that's gotta be it. I thought 'escort' would mean just one warship would be enough to cover a transport like in pre-C3C. Maybe I'll mention it on the patch thread.

 

[Chauliodus]

Anyone notice this when agression level is changed?

 

[unscratchedfoot]

I've only played it on most aggressive AI. Is that why?

 

[meltone1]

i've noticed the same thing and I think it is kind of sad. (even though when they don't attack me I'm usually thankful, at least at the moment ) When I think back on it though, the AI usually has a ridiculous amount of ships when I play on island maps (which I have done quite a bit lately) and they really should wipe my boats out, which are far outnumbered. The way it is now, I can take one transport with some units in it (no escort) to a far away island and be confident that it won't get attacked. It would be more frustrating if they attacked more, since they do tend to build a tremendous amount of boats, but it would be more competitive.

 

[Chieftess]

The 'magic number' now is about 3 defending ships per escort ship. Although, I've sometimes seen 2 ships defending.

 

[Lab Monkey]

I've had Byzantian Dromons attack my galleys, but they seemed very ineficient. In fact, they ignored some nearby galleys in order to intercept some that were about to mke landfall nearby one of their cities on another island. I've a feeling that attacking AI ships follow a similar rule to AI land units, in that they heavily prioritise to the point of ignoring easy targets (like a single galley full of swordsmen).

 

[unscratchedfoot]

I wonder if those Dromons perhaps had no transports to need an escort. Like if a civ has no transports, then it's ships will attack normally?

By the way, I experimented both with and without "Requires Escort" flagged in the editor for transports and aircraft carriers and still had no luck (ie: I wasn't attacked).

I WANT TO BE ATTACKED!!

what am I saying?

I think I must bonkers to say that.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

I've had fully blown naval warfare with the AI. They put a lot of warships on escort duty, but they certainly still build warships purely to seek out and destroy yours. You must have been unlucky.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

I played a game and saw plenty of AI attacking my ships. I left a transport exposed outside one of my cities, that had about 27 bombers in it, so I just let them come after the ship, then bombed the frigates. So the AI will come after you.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Okay so based on what people are saying, I can conclude:

1) The AI will allocate a certain number of warships to escort duty - about 2 or 3 per transport.

2) The AI navy will determine which target is most dangerous and head for it at all cost, including ignoring easy prey while on route to the target.


Has anyone ever seen the AI bombard land targets with ships? Or cities and land improvements?

 

[Zer0xChan]

I've had AI ships bombared my cities on the WWII scenario...annoying really

 

[silver 2039]

The Byzantines Bombarded my cities and improvements with the Dromon.

 

[valamas]

In the Rise of Rome scenario, i played Rome and Carthage had teams of three galleys that all they would do is transport trrops to Sility etc. They then had single ships that would come out and do seek and destroy on my galleys.

I sucked greece into a fight with cartage and they did the same.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

Its too bad that the AI doesnt realize that since many escorts are faster than the escorted ship, the escort may have one or 2 movement points to "play" with.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Originally posted by silver 2039
The Byzantines Bombarded my cities and improvements with the Dromon.

I'm thinking that may be because they had no dromons on tranport duty at the time. Dromons have both naval power and naval transport flagged so I'm wondering if I should flag modern transports similarly so that when they're done moving troops, the heavies can go do what they are meant to do.

As for this problem, the game designers do deserve credit for making the AI ships group up like real navies do. I guess it needs to be worked on some more before we can have naval battles.

alphawolf, I think the biggest loss is the AI is not using its bombard while on the move. It would make sense to fire at stuff they're passing while getting to wherever they are always going to, at least that's what a human player would do anyways.