Allied AI are still useless in wars

[ASGeek2012]

I wondered what was causing that!!! I keep having random one or two ship fleets floating around my empire and was super confused as to where they were all coming from.

It's caused by the change they made in 2.6 to the way reinforcements work. It used to be that the new ships would spawn and travel towards your fleet. Now they use the MIA mechanics that your fleets do when they get caught behind closed borders or your science ships does the experimental navigation, meaning they just vanish and reappear some time later near your fleet (except, of course, when it doesn't work and they just sit where they spawned).

I get why they did it. One of the most annoying things about reinforcement was that they completely ignored what was in their path. I would have cases where ships were getting picked off by enemy starbases that they blundered into. With the new mechanic, it's mostly fixed. Except, of course, when it doesn't work.

 

[methegrate]

It's caused by the change they made in 2.6 to the way reinforcements work. It used to be that the new ships would spawn and travel towards your fleet. Now they use the MIA mechanics that your fleets do when they get caught behind closed borders or your science ships does the experimental navigation, meaning they just vanish and reappear some time later near your fleet (except, of course, when it doesn't work and they just sit where they spawned).

I get why they did it. One of the most annoying things about reinforcement was that they completely ignored what was in their path. I would have cases where ships were getting picked off by enemy starbases that they blundered into. With the new mechanic, it's mostly fixed. Except, of course, when it doesn't work.

The new mechanic I knew about, they explained it in the update notes. And I really like it, actually, for exactly the reason you mention. Plus it promises to cut down on having like a dozen two ship fleets flying all over the place.

I just didn't know what was causing reinforcements to occasionally spawn as idle fleets. Good to know what the bug is.

 

[EvilxFish]

Just to add to this I also experienced something similar lately, to summarize, I was in a federation and we had a war, my systems were getting taken and I was struggling to hold, my AI buddy with a fleet literally 3X bigger than the remaining enemies did not come to help and stayed in their own territory. When my capital got taken they came out to retake that before running home again never to be seen until I quit because frankly I had lost. It's actually quite depressing just how bad the AI was... I want to be able to form alliances where we defend each other and not have to worry whether or not the AI will behave in a sane manner when the time comes. Please fix the AI, I love Stellaris but this is the one thing that drives me mad.

 

[GuardianGI]

Allied federation fleets endlessly ping-pong around their homeworlds while 50% of their empires get captured by smaller fleets. Game is "B"R"O"K"EN".

 

[Spartakus]

OK, this has taken all the fun out of my current game for me. If it get's fixed soon I might be convinced to load it again but as of right now I'll just play something else. Something that looks like it passed an actual QA. One where the issues get fixed.

What's baffling me the most is that the dev diary about the AI promised a feature where you could debug the AI behavior, so that we could at least see why it is broken:

amazingly it does not work.

 

[PetStark]

It's not just that the AI stays home defending their stations either, they don't even do that. I've since looked at other threads and talked to other people and they're having the same issue. Even large allied empires with overwhelmingly large fleets will happily let their entire empire get sieged down and never assign orders to their fleets in the capital. Solo games honestly feel unplayable right now. What really peeves me is that the absolute minimum amount of play-testing would have caught this. It's such an obvious issue that I can't see how no one at Paradox noticed this before release. I really appreciate the work they put into this game, but it's just so frustrating that there always seems to be a vital system broken or under-performing that kills enjoyment.

I agree 100%

The priority that Paradox gives to the AI ruins what It would be the best game ever made

AI has to be one of the most important factor in a strategic games.

Everything else is a 10!!! But, in ponderation, with this horrible AI, the game that we currently have is a mediocre one

I am sorry

 

[wtface]

Based on my experience the AI assigns a high weight to defending systems and especially its capitol. It also seems to prepare fleets for aggressive action at its cap, so fleets will be sitting there waiting for alloy to trickle in as well.

I once took an AI capitol, because its fleets were for some reason away. The whole navy woke up and came after me and took it back. Do a save reload and go around the cap, and the whole navy stays sleeping around other planets.