I mean a little bit? Spain and Portugal put together have never devoted more than a couple hundred guns at once to it, (10-20 ships, maybe less) and that was before I started permafighting them (aka I nuke their navy every ten years, and steal a bunch of colonial provinces)
The fact that you are mocking the poor unfortunate AI does not honor you.
Although I understand very well, I myself am a sinner.
But I'm talking about something else. Since I'm usually on the other side, I use Pirate Hunt a lot. Firstly, by sending even a small number of ships, I get -99 to the effectiveness of the pirates of the node, and this directly affects the effectiveness of the raids and they stop. The AI never takes advantage of this opportunity.
When real pirates appear in the node, you have to increase the number of ships, and after a month the pirates leave. Moreover, the number of ships is generally small, you need 1.5 times more galleys.
Now let's look at another example. I am sending 10 merchant ships to Constantinople to piracy. With a very large fleet, the Ottomans never try to use the Pirate Hunt mission. I understand the situation when it is physically impossible to carry it out, because there is nothing, but he does not do this even when it costs him nothing.
But once upon a time, I saw how AI tried to fight pirates in the Malacca region. But that was a very long time ago.
