[BTS] What in the world is the AI doing, spamming this many useles navy units (on a pangea map, even)??

GenericName1998

Chieftain
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Aug 31, 2020
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18
Is this a bug?

I've seen this AI behaviour before on BTS. Does this also occur on Vanilla and Warlords?
 

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It used to be so - even with the [BtS] expansion.


But something has surely changed during the last couple of years. At least in the R:I mod.

If you are in doubt, take at look at these screenshots I posted in another thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/realism-invictus.411799/page-427 (starting with Samson's post dated 12th June and followed with my screenshots same day).:
 
If you've entered the "chipotle" cheat code in My Games\Beyond the Sword\CivilizationIV.ini, you can enter Debug mode (Ctrl+Z) and hold Shift while hovering over the AI stack to see the UnitAI types (e.g. UNITAI_EXPLORE_SEA) and Shift+Ctrl for the MissionAI types (e.g. MISSIONAI_LOAD_SETTLER). But, even with that info, I'd still find it difficult to guess what specifically went wrong here; one would really have to inspect older savegames. Maybe Saladin was harassed by a Privateer at some point?
 
It's hard to tell without knowing more, but it's possible as f1rpo said that a privateer was harassing it. The AI tend to overreact to privateers. But with all the galleys, it's also likely it made a demand from you that you refused and it wants to invade but can't because it doesn't have an open agreement with it's neighbors ( looks like America?) So it needs to attack you from the sea?
 
I thought the AI would not produce Caravels as escorts for a naval invasion, but, having had a brief look at the code, it seems that you're right - a naval invasion (or plan for one), possibly much earlier in the game, to work around closed borders could be an explanation. Galleys would likely not be able to bypass a neighbor's borders, but the AI could well get that wrong. As for a Privateer, the AI might've had only the tech for Galleys at first and later Caravels; but this can't easily explain the absence of Triremes.
 
What's equally strange is that if you attack a caravel/galleon stack the caravels are first choice defenders even though galleons have a higher base strength.
 
I thought the AI would not produce Caravels as escorts for a naval invasion, but, having had a brief look at the code, it seems that you're right - a naval invasion (or plan for one), possibly much earlier in the game, to work around closed borders could be an explanation. Galleys would likely not be able to bypass a neighbor's borders, but the AI could well get that wrong. As for a Privateer, the AI might've had only the tech for Galleys at first and later Caravels; but this can't easily explain the absence of Triremes.
You're right, galleys won't be able to around.
 
In terms of caravels instead of triremes maybe the AI had optics to upgrade triremes but not astronomy to upgrade galleys.
 
I find it rather distressing to be pillaged by 600 caravels on Pangaea maps when I'm war with 5-6 civs. It's the only situation I use the map editor to spawn battleships on my fishing boats, otherwise the game would be unplayable. There is simply no way for the human to match the caravel output of multiple Emperor AI's on a Huge Pangea, I've even lost 4 battleships to a nearly infinite stack of caravels.

I'd seriously love to know what goes through the AI's mind when I'm marching on their capitol with 50 rifles and 10 cannons and they're still spamming armadas of caravels on a pangea map.
 
You really made my day with that imagery! A squadron of battleships just chilling out and suddenly they get swarmed by an infinite armada of sailing ships.
 
You really made my day with that imagery! A squadron of battleships just chilling out and suddenly they get swarmed by an infinite armada of sailing ships.
I remember it being 4 civs with 20+ caravels each. I made 1 battleship per civ on my fishing boats at my capitol. I didn't want to make too many battleships, otherwise it would alter the power scales too much and impact the diplomatic flow of the game (essentially cheating, as it would be too easy to demand peace treaties), the next turn all four battleships died. I deleted the stacks of caravels spawned one battleship at my capitol again, and moved on.

I share the OP's pain. Also if they didnt' mass caravels they would get smashed by my rifle/cannons as hard as they do.
 
Caravels can't pillage.
but they can sit on top of the fishing boats, and there's always be a couple of galleons/frigs with them when you have rifles and cannons, the AI will tech astro and chem on pangea before rifling (another reason why it loses on the ground)
 
You can build frigates too. Unless you have so few coastal cities the few pillaged resources barely matter.
 
You can build frigates too. Unless you have so few coastal cities the few pillaged resources barely matter.
If yuo're playing immortal or emperor with 18 aggressive on a huge Pangea (with no tech trading), you can't research the frigate tech line before rifles and cannons, because astrnomy must be delayed to get rifling and steel in time. You then need railroads. Astro comes very late, and the HUMAN cannot match 7-8 hostile ai's running around with stacks even with frigs and ironclads. If you put hammers into this, yuo'll get steamrolled on the ground, epscialyl by gengis khan and napolean who beelines grenadiers and cannons (and dont' spam navy ships!)

You need 3 coastal cities with a drydock, miltiary acadamy, dryock + pentagon wonder before you can efficiently use your hammers on destroyers and carriers (3 carriers+24 destroyers is the minimum to start getting aggressive with your navy, with six transports loaded with marines to raze the enemy coastal cities). Not to mention you also need factory, coal plant, hospital aqueduct and supermarket and Mining INC in these three coastal cities, this is all long after the rifle/cannon era.
 
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Should still be possible to win. AI are very flawed and diplomacy always wins the day. You can war before rifles. Starting save?
 
Should still be possible to win. AI are very flawed and diplomacy always wins the day. You can war before rifles. Starting save?
Lol, have you ever tried diplomacy with 18 Ai's on a Pangea with no tech trading? Yes diplomacy wins, assuming you made the right pick of your Permanent alliance buddy two eras before communism.

Record yourself playing vs 18 aggressive ai on Huge Pangea with no tech trading and no vassals on Immortal difficulty and show me how you survive Giglameshes vultures, followed by genghih's keshiks, followed by Surry's elepult, followed by Tokus Samatrebs, followed up by Justianians cataphracts, followed by izzy's conquisators, followed by the predicigtable triple whammie of Napoleon+Genghis+Shaka CRIII grenadiers and cannons, followed up by Churchhill's redcoat draft and Catherine's Cossask and then Bismarck's panzers..........while devoting half your hammers to triremes, caravels, galleons and frigates lolololol.


Oh yeah, it's not just surviving the continuous onslaught from all four corners of your empire. The biggest threat in the game is that runaway AI, Mansa/Zara/Willem/HP, wonder whoring on the opposite side of the map with 3 bronze age archers in the cities, teching to rocketry and advanced flight, and the only way to stop them is to bulldoze your way through 5-6 heavily cultured AI's in order to reach them over the first 700-900 turns, because in end, it's always Mansa/Zara/Willem/HP that closes the game out and forces me to ragequit (even with a battleship on my fishing boats in the Renaissance Era, I lose 80% of the Immortal Games, and 30% of the Emporer games if I slack off and go trhough the turns too fast. To win on Immortal you really gotta 5-10 minutes per turn after the Classical Era).

You can reoll your start as much as your heart's desire
 
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