No Navy

shapecharge

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
85
Location
Ohio
Ok just got 3/4 through my first game with the new AI(post patch G). I am playing Archipelgo and the AI has not built a single ship. I know from looking through the other postings that this may be a problem and I know it has been a problem in the past, but I while back in one of the patches the AI for use of Navy and Ships got alot better in some of my last patch G game they expanded overseas and mounted Amphpious assualts with large navies.
My question is does the new AI not build any ships, ever?
If so I will quit this game and go to Pangea.

Overall I like the Changes, but the lack of AI use of navy is disappointing since I was enjoying playing with a decent Naval AI the last 6-8 months or so before I downloaded patch J.

Thanks in Advance and Just to let all of you know that work on the AI and other fetures of this great MOD thanks for all the hard and free work you do.

WDW.
 
I could throw together a light archipilagomod that let's the computer build some ships, if it is disired. It wont be very comlicated just built around the computer striving to have some ships in relation to his town/coastal towns, nothing about the ships are used. Want me to try?
 
Adhasa,

Thanks for the offer but its ok, with xmas coming up. Don't have much time for gaming anyways and hopefully by January time frame some of the issues such as this one and others I have seen mentioned are fixed.

WDW
 
I haven't seen navies in reg. games or scenarios yet. I'm on version J I believe. The AI also seems pretty lame. I'm playing about the middle of the difficulty levels. Can't remember the name exactly right now.
 
As strictly a player, the presence of a navy in the game, both human and AI, is important to me not only for game balance but to help me with the narrative of the game in my head. As long as I've got a good story theme going generally, I can take any wacko happening or event in stride and have an even better time playing despite something bad happening. With no AI navy, its like a part of reality is closed off. Its very inhibiting mentally.

Here's hoping feature lock doesn't mean no AI navy.
 
I have noticed this as well. I just finish a game on the quick speed Eurbeus map type. and the only ship aside from mine a saw was the sailors dirge. This bothered me considering the Lanum where one of the factions and most of thier cities where coastal ones.
 
As strictly a player, the presence of a navy in the game, both human and AI, is important to me not only for game balance but to help me with the narrative of the game in my head. As long as I've got a good story theme going generally, I can take any wacko happening or event in stride and have an even better time playing despite something bad happening. With no AI navy, its like a part of reality is closed off. Its very inhibiting mentally.

Here's hoping feature lock doesn't mean no AI navy.

I'm sure no AI navy is not a feature, it just appears to be a side effect of how the FfH AI operates. So there's every reason to hope that it will be fixed in a future patch.
 
I play Orbis and ive been invaded by impressive navies many MANY times. its always when my army is far away fighting the Infernals or something... trying to make Erebus a better world for EVERYONE, when the Ljos decide to send some ships packed with troops to my defenseless, neglected shores.

I never thought it was an Orbis improvement though.
 
Pre-wild mana AI merge, the AI was using navy very uneffectively because the base capacity of the ships is low and it didn't understand the "crew" promotions. They could manage some invasions with the later ships, though.

Then FfH was merged with a buggy, uncomplete version of an AI modmod. The result is no navy at all.
 
How many games of the wildmana version that was merged did you play? The number of bugs reported were very very few. And any civ mod has a few bugs, so what?

I also fail to see what a mod from which parts were merged some month ago has anything to do with how FFH is today. I personally prefere patch J naval AI to patch g but I agree that it could be improved a lot.
 
Well, not so much bugs, as more Artificial Stupidity. Barbarian Axes pillaging stuff in AI's territory with the AI not paying any attention, lack of navy, not knowing how to properly use its stacks...

I personally prefere patch J naval AI to patch g

Not using navy at all is better then using it ineffectively? :confused: Patch J is famous for completely no AI ship building.

I'd give the recent Wild Mana a try, it seems that the AI had been very much improved there since the 5.0 merged version. Unfortunately, I have my own modmod changes and porting them is a lot of XML work. Though I heard that in Wild Mana there exists a True Modular system that makes such stuff easier. But I also don't want to download a bunch of extra WM stuff I'll never use anyway. So I'll stick with some of my own AI weighting changes or with Turin's economic AI mod.
 
Has anyone tried creating a mod, where FFH navy units and promotions are made as close as possable to classic BTS.

Is this as easy as changing some unit definitions? And would this allow FFh civs to use the navy as effectivly as classicBTS civs?
 
Is this as easy as changing some unit definitions? And would this allow FFh civs to use the navy as effectivly as classicBTS civs?

It's harder then that, but it's purely XML work. I usually just increase the capacity of all ships by 2.

Current merged 5.0 AI, however, is very hardcoded in Python when it comes to unit selecting, so the AI wouldn't build ships anyway.
 
I can't speak of the current AI but I found with previous AI that just making them use crew promotions was a big help. This allowed them to turn carry 1 ships into carry 2 ships, making them able to send settler+defender to settle on other continents. Instead of just a settler that was likely to be eaten by the nearest animal/barb.

The AI can't handle ships that carry one unit well. It expect the ship to be able to carry two or more. Changing all ships that carry one to carry two should help it, especially triremes. Even so it's only a start, more is needed.
 
Well, not so much bugs, as more Artificial Stupidity. Barbarian Axes pillaging stuff in AI's territory with the AI not paying any attention
Instead of attacking the Barbs with the next best unit, the AI uses patrols for that. Allows the AI to use barbs for XP farming (I always love it when I see an AI army lead by a very expierienced unit) and is a lot more efficient against tougher barbs like Orthus. The patch g AI was a total victim for Orthus sometimes as it didn't understand to group units together. It seems a lot of complaints around here are just "the AI plays different than me, it must be stupid"
lack of navy
how is giving a lower priority to something the AI doesn't understand artificial Stupidity? I rather have the AI build a unit it can use than one it can't.
not knowing how to properly use its stacks...
that's true there are some issues which hopefully get fixed over time. But it's not like the BTS AI knows how to use their stacks properly...The City Attack stacks in BTS for example love to attack single units instead of moving to its target city (which is a bad thing for larger stacks). Unfortunatly even the current Wildmana version is suffering from this but I located te garbage in the DLL causing this behaviour, so this will be fixed in Wildmana next patch.

So I'll stick with some of my own AI weighting changes or with Turin's economic AI mod.
Yeah, Turin's mod is really good. I just prefere an AI that uses all the things that make FFH unique, like spells or heroes (which is why I don't care about navy that much). One game I declared war on Balseraph, took a few cities from them, made peace after taking the Capital and then a few turns later I noticed that I had lost their Capital. Loki :lol:
 
It seems a lot of complaints around here are just "the AI plays different than me, it must be stupid"
This has been used to dismiss a lot of the feedback on the post-H AI. It is the perfect position for someone defending the current AIs actions, because it is almost impossible to disprove. I find it flawed, because it makes the assumption that "the AI plays like me, so it must be smart".

how is giving a lower priority to something the AI doesn't understand artificial Stupidity? I rather have the AI build a unit it can use than one it can't.
I just prefere an AI that uses all the things that make FFH unique, like spells or heroes (which is why I don't care about navy that much).
Teaching the AI to use spells is a huge improvement, but having it never build ships makes a terrible tradeoff. Resources are an important part of the game and any game with salt water is going to have salt water resources. It is possible to set up one's games to minimize the damage from the AIs' lack of naval presence, but unless you play land-only maps the AIs inability to protect salt water resources becomes a problem. There are many map styles that will remain completely unplayable until the AI can use a navy properly.

Furthermore, there is one civ that is centered around the sea. Now that Pirate Coves are working properly the Lanun economy is much stronger, but their primary focus centers around units that they never build. The Boarding Party is weaker than a normal Champion, but can attack and capture enemy ships as compensation. The value of that compensation quickly fades when the Lanun build no navy, and the AI doesn't understand that it can attack adjacent naval units from land. One of the Lanun heroes is a ship, as is one of their unique units, but that entire aspect of the civ is denied because the current AI chooses never to build those units. I would argue that the existance of the Lanun requires that navies must also be considered one of "the things that make FFH unique".

The AI cannot be complete until it can make use of everything important in the game. An AI that just ignores what it can't understand is flawed. It will need to be taught to understand (at some level) the basic aspects of the game before it can be considered finished.
 
Wild Mana's AI kicks ass.

But I am not playing regular vanilla FFH right now, because the vanilla FFH AI is poor.

Sorry Sephi, I understand you want to stand up for your work, but FFH is in sore need of a new patch. The AI that was added improved in some ways, but in others, it ruined vanilla FFH. Your work at continupously improving the AI in Wildmana has made it the best game I have ever played, and I mean that as in computer game or console game, not game of civilization. I mean, it is really disappointing to sink 10 hours into a game, then get the suspicion something is up, then open worldbuilder and see your suspicions were correct: the AI isn't building any kind of navy, or the AI's *huge* army is sitting in the corner of its empire while an enemy army rolls through its empire taking city after city. I don't think there is a need for you to get defensive, patch J was released a little prematurely, or without enough playtesting to catch the glaring problems. Really, patch K, with your newest wildmana AI improvements, could really be the last patch ever for FFH2, but right now, it would be a crying shame if J were the last patch.

I would really recommend only playing Wildmana to anyone that wants a the best AI ever, by far. In fact, I think other mods currently have a better AI, or even psuedo AI, than FFH patch J currently does.
 
how is giving a lower priority to something the AI doesn't understand artificial Stupidity? I rather have the AI build a unit it can use than one it can't.

Firstly, the 5.0 AI doesn't give "lower priority" to the ships, it flat out doesn't build them.
5.0 is stupider then the pre-merge AI in regards to the navy, therefore it's AS.

It was possible to fix the pre-merge navy AI by increasing the ships capacity. Now it's impossible to do it. Not only it's AS, it actually makes modmod workaround for that AS harder.

Instead of attacking the Barbs with the next best unit, the AI uses patrols for that.

Does anyone here allow the barbies to pillage improvements in your territory so that you can pick off some XP? That's objectively not a good strategy.

I just prefere an AI that uses all the things that make FFH unique, like spells or heroes (which is why I don't care about navy that much).

That's why the spellcasting part of Wild Mana should have been merged, while the other ones, like stack manoeuvres etc, shouldn't have been, at least, in 5.0 version.

And using the same logic, you can call an AI who builds only heroes, mages and priests a success, because "I just prefer an AI that uses all the things that make FFH unique, like spells or heroes (which is why I don't care about navy, recon and melee lines that much)".
 
This has been used to dismiss a lot of the feedback on the post-H AI.
Maybe, but it is still true. AI uses a different logic than a Human. AI has virtually no Memory in Civ. A human might now "oh, my worker disapperead, there might be an invisible spider" but AI doesn't know things like that.

I would argue that the existance of the Lanun requires that navies must also be considered one of "the things that make FFH unique".
yes, yes of course. Not only Lanun but also the waterwalking OO units. I would love to see an AI understanding all of that in FFH.
But it's not like it is an easy thing to get the Lanun AI to understand their Champion UU.


@Lonewolf I have seen the AI building ships in Patch J. It's very rare, but it does happen :p
 
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