AI really doesn't like to build transports

[Pugman]

After playing several games I've noticed a pattern where the AI does not like to build transports for some reason. They can have plenty of money, troops, and force limits, but they still won't build enough to support any sort of invasion. I just watched France start a war to take Sardinia but could never take it despite have no real enemy naval presence anywhere nearby and not really doing anything to move troops there. Understand this was a massive BBB blob fighting a couple tiny states and it could not find a way to invade Sardinia. This is one example and I'm seeing this a lot. Colonial nations do the same thing. A CN in the West Indies is no good for anything militarily. They just won't move their troops.

 

[delpiero1234]

After playing several games I've noticed a pattern where the AI does not like to build transports for some reason. They can have plenty of money, troops, and force limits, but they still won't build enough to support any sort of invasion. I just watched France start a war to take Sardinia but could never take it despite have no real enemy naval presence anywhere nearby and not really doing anything to move troops there. Understand this was a massive BBB blob fighting a couple tiny states and it could not find a way to invade Sardinia.

I noticed this, too, that the AI is getting worse at naval invasions. Prior to 1.7.3 England actually built transports from time to time. Now I rarely see them do anything in vanilla.
Game has been released for a year ago and naval warfare is still non-existent an the AI is horrible at it..

A CN in the West Indies is no good for anything militarily. They just won't move their troops.

In VeF the Caribbean is no Colonial Nation. You should try it out

 

[Sgt.Pepper1947]

Isn't this a thread already somewhere else? I'm sure there are at least two recent threads dedicated to naval AI, not to say you shouldn't post, it's just a bit overkill now to be complaining on naval AI.

 

[Aldun]

Absolutely.

In my recent game I am playing as westernized Iroquis. It is not 1700 and I control all of north america and the caribean, simply because none of those so called "great powers" owns a single transport ship to carry their massive armies over the atlantic.
(And because I only need to get to 10% warscore in order to demand a massive amount of oversee-provinces from them)

 

[ero_sk]

Recently played as Castile, had allied Portugal and been watching three wars Portugal vs Marocco. Portugal had been trying to gain some territories but just couldn't make it. They'd been sending 4-7 regiments which were quickly wiped by Marocco before reinforcement arrived. Moreover I've seen only once Portugal sending reinfocments. Yet another example.

 

[Bagonad]

Although I agree that the naval AI is bad, I wouldn't say it's worse than it used to be. I've seen England fare much better since 1.7, they will often annex Brittany in my games, and sometimes even attack Burgundy with a decent army.

Portugal will often conquer all of Morocco and Algeria as well.

 

[Galu]

I have totalyy different expirience, I started fun-game france into jerusalem, and winning HYW never was that simple. In previous versions England had quite nicely dropped a 10-15k troops here and there forcing me to running around france from coast to coast. In 1.7.3 the didn`t transport even 1k troops anywhere .

 

[cleef]

The devs are working to fix and improve naval ai (esp. invasions) for the following DLC... At least that's what they said :/

 

[yahiko]

French AI rulez in naval invasion:

 

[laijka]

French AI rulez in naval invasion:

-snip-

Not sure how to feel about that.

On one hand, France is actually using transports. But on the other, England WTF?

 

[Sn3ipen]

The devs are working to fix and improve naval ai (esp. invasions) for the following DLC... At least that's what they said :/

I hope you are right. I am playing Prussia right now since the AI are so bad at invasions. I hope the AI will be able to use the new "mothball fleets" mechanic and see that having lots of ships is not that expensive. I love the naval game but after a while it gets boring since the AI is so bad at it.

 

[yahiko]

Not sure how to feel about that.

On one hand, France is actually using transports. But on the other, England WTF?

Rule France, France rule the waves !

 

[Pugman]

The devs are working to fix and improve naval ai (esp. invasions) for the following DLC... At least that's what they said :/

I for one will be holding out to see if it's fixed before buying any more DLCs. I love the game but the AI needs a lot of work. For naval AI nations to essentially be non-factors in the game kinda ruins it for me.

 

[cleef]

Quote from Wiz (AI dev) regarding the priorities they have atm for naval AI:

To name a few:
- Naval invasion AI
- Fleet control AI
- Idea group picking AI
- AI for new features

Topic here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...k-Truce-penalty-just-like-players-do.../page2

 

[delpiero1234]

Quote from Wiz (AI dev) regarding the priorities they have atm for naval AI:

Topic here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...k-Truce-penalty-just-like-players-do.../page2

One year after release, Wiz starts working on a naval AI

 

[The GOAT 1988]

In my current Cherokee game, the Brits built like 13 transports and sent as many men to the Aztecs to invade. Pisses me off bc now I feel like I cant attack their colonial nations in Canada or Mexico bc they might send troops

 

[Pugman]

One year after release, Wiz starts working on a naval AI

In his defense, I think probably some of the new features and AI work they put in must have caused some issues with the naval AI. If memory serves t didn't always have these problems to this degree.

 

[Wizzington]

In his defense, I think probably some of the new features and AI work they put in must have caused some issues with the naval AI. If memory serves t didn't always have these problems to this degree.

The problem with naval AI is that I didn't have time to completely rewrite it before the release of the game, so while I've spent plenty of time on it between release and now, it's always been subject to a lot of bugs and tendencies for fixes to create more problems just by virtue of being very old code. This also leads to it having a lower priority simply because some tweaking here and there isn't ever going to make it great, and I rarely have the kind of consecutive free time on EU4 (I work on several other projects as well) that would be needed for a total rewrite + testing + inevitable bugfixes for the new system.

 

[Beagá]

Wel one funny behavior I´ve seen is a 30 province Vijnayagar failing miserably to invade...

OPM Ceylon.

Through on the other side I´ve often seen colonial nations invade Cuba etc, so maybe the problem really is small trasnport fleets and thus AI not invading due to a small army that can fit.

 

[Kh3lben]

It honestly feels much better after 1.6-1.7 .England is regularly bringing troops to Mediterranean wars(they tend to ally Venice a lot) ,the Iberians are not going full retard vs the NA nations anymore and Austria actually builds a navy now up in the lowlands. The most extreme example that comes to mind is watching Denmark,Norway and Sweden sailing all around Europe to come defend Byzantium against the Ottos.