Using ships immediately after purchase

[Magus Maximus]

Hello all. I haven't posted on these boards in a few years since the days of CivIII. I recently bought CiV G&K and been playing more than it's healthy probably...anyway, moving on to my question.

I've seen this happened twice now. I position my units to attack a coastal city. No units appeared to be garrisoned in the city. I hit next turn and the AI purchases a ship (Frigate both times) and used it to bombard my unit the same turn. I see the following possibilities here:

1- I'm blind and the frigate was there all along.
2- There was some type of graphic delay and the ship didn't show up right away.
3- Somehow the AI is able to purchase and use ships on the same turn.
4- Anyone can purchase units and bombard on the same turn (??)

Has anyone else notice this? Am I missing something?

 

[Plumfairy]

Hello all. I haven't posted on these boards in a few years since the days of CivIII. I recently bought CiV G&K and been playing more than it's healthy probably...anyway, moving on to my question.

I've seen this happened twice now. I position my units to attack a coastal city. No units appeared to be garrisoned in the city. I hit next turn and the AI purchases a ship (Frigate both times) and used it to bombard my unit the same turn. I see the following possibilities here:

1- I'm blind and the frigate was there all along.
2- There was some type of graphic delay and the ship didn't show up right away.
3- Somehow the AI is able to purchase and use ships on the same turn.
4- Anyone can purchase units and bombard on the same turn (??)

Has anyone else notice this? Am I missing something?

Another possibility is that the AI was building a ship, which would allow him to use the ship the first turn it appears.

 

[Magus Maximus]

Sometimes the easiest explanation is the right one. I would say it's too much coincidence, especially since one of these times they were not at war with anyone. But at the same time, more often than not when I siege a city and this does not happen so it could be just conincidence. I guess if this happens again I'll investigate further

 

[Plumfairy]

You might want to try playing with this mod running in the background. It doesn't do anything until you choose to open its special interface. And while it's open, you're essentially playing in God mode. One of the things it enables (when you have it open) is that you can see what enemy cities are producing, so you could see for sure if the city happened to be producing a ship.

I often play with that mod so that if I lose, I can look at the whole map & what the other civs are doing in order to learn how they whipped my butt.

One warning about that mod: while it's running, you won't earn any achievements. But if you choose to exit the game & reload the save w/out the mod, achievements will become available again.

 

[Magus Maximus]

Thanks! I'll look into it!

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Another possibility is that the AI was building a ship, which would allow him to use the ship the first turn it appears.

This is almost certainly what has happened for three reasons:
1.) when you declare war on the AI and/or move units into a city's territory (which it sounds like you have), it will shift production to a military unit in that city but it doesn't (at least at G&K) purchase military units in that city.
2.) purchased units wait until the turn after purchase to act whereas produced units can act on the turn of completion, at least for the player, and I'm not aware of this being augmented for the AI on any particular difficulty level.
3.) Don't forget that the AI does have production bonuses, so the units will fly out pretty quick in a challenged city

 

[Magus Maximus]

The only thing that raised my suspicion is that last time this happened, it happened the turn right after I declared war. I declared war, move my ships to the coast, attacked, hit next turn and boom, there was a ship that wasn't there before bombarding me.

I didn't have a particularly large number of ships sitting at the AI's borders for a while. And I kept most of the ships that were there for a turn or two a couple of tiles away to avoid the "troops at my border" message.

I'm willing to accept the possibility of a coincidence, but I will keep my eye open and investigate. This was a king difficulty so I'm not sure how much of a production bonus the AI would have.

 

[Plumfairy]

1.) when you declare war on the AI and/or move units into a city's territory (which it sounds like you have), it will shift production to a military unit in that city but it doesn't (at least at G&K) purchase military units in that city.

This isn't consistently true. The AI buys units whenever it calculates (by whatever algorithm it uses) that its forces are too few in number. However, the AI also prioritizes simply building enough units so that its force is always the right number even during peacetime. But if you suddenly get a bunch of units somehow & then declare war, or if the AI recently lost a bunch of units in some other conflict, it will buy units after you DoW.

Also, the AI doesn't always switch to military production either. Sometimes it keeps right on building its non-war stuff. I can't figure out what the trigger is for it to keep building peaceful stuff.

 

[Walter R]

Fighting Attila in current game (with SOTL), just been taking (and re-taking) Attila's court. 3 times he popped a galleas during the battle, not once did he fire same turn - I was watching out for it given this post.