Teleporting naval AI units, deity

[poxpower]

So I got bored of non-domination victory for deity and now I'm trying to declare more wars against the AI and I'm noticing suspicious things, especially with ships.

So this happens: Standard speed, shaka, he's sitting there with only two coastal cities on my side and his other cities on the other side with ice locking the top. I declare war, he has only galleas while I have frigates. I kill all his caravels and galleas. Suddenly I scout a bay near one of his cities only to discover 6 fresh frigates just chilling there.

As the war continued he always seemed to have units come out of that bay and not his cities.
It's as if he was buying the frigates in his other coastal cities and placing them in the fog of war on the correct side to attack me.

I was just watching in awe as frigates were just appearing from the top of the map to help defend his cities.

I can't be the only one who this has happened to? I only noticed this with naval units so far, though sometimes I find that their land units move to the frontlines suspiciously fast no matter how many AIs they're at war with when you declare war on them. But that's still POSSIBLE. lol

 

[danaphanous]

I've watched a lot of AI battles. Enough to know that warmongers like Shaka spam boats and just leave them lining the coast, most of them don't even move to respond to an attack so it looks like they come out of nowhere when they do respond. They don't "teleport" troops or anything like that though.

If that area is in the fog of war, then maybe there is a city you can't see too?

 

[poxpower]

I've watched a lot of AI battles. Enough to know that warmongers like Shaka spam boats and just leave them lining the coast, most of them don't even move to respond to an attack so it looks like they come out of nowhere when they do respond. They don't "teleport" troops or anything like that though.

If that area is in the fog of war, then maybe there is a city you can't see too?

I did scout, those two cities were the only way he could be producing ships on that side of the continent. He was in a bay and I had vision of every access to it. All I couldn't see was the very top corner of it that was locked in ice where he magically happened to have several frigates just idling all this time. SURE SHAKA, SURE.

But yes it is possible that he's so stupid he forgot about them until I scouted them? I dunno.

 

[danaphanous]

I'd say it's likely. The AI often leaves ships lying about in my experience. They have huge navies and only send a fraction of them to attack. No idea why...

 

[Kriogen]

... No idea why...

Sometimes I notice that AI units get 'stuck' in arctica/antarctica while in 'scout' mode. Happens with my units also if I put them in auto-explore mode.

AI likes to 'camp' trade routes.

 

[beetle]

The AIs love to hold back units. If you have a spy in their cap you will see that it almost never undefended -- even when the AI really could be using modern units at the front.

How many time have you (1) killed every unit in sight, (2) worn the city down to zero health, then (3) take the city, only to (4) have a bunch of unit “spawn” in the fog? The units were waiting, rather uselessly, behind the city -- instead of trying to stop the city from falling in the first place.

I guess that is good tactics if (1) you can afford to rush buy the lost buildings, and (2) out number your opponent significantly?

But I also suspect that the AI has more relaxed rules for buying units in cities with a garrison. That would explain some of what I experience.

 

[poxpower]

Yeah I'm starting to see the AI is just extremely incompetent at moving units. I make them fight each other through my open borders and I just see large armies sitting there, not attacking the guy they're supposed to be at war with.
I don't even understand how they take cities from each other, they don't even move units half the time lol. How can the AI be this bad? Is it that hard to just program a unit to move towards something?

It seems they put all their ressources into the barbarian spawning AI so that it knows to always spawn within 2 tiles of an undefended worker/ settlers