Auto-calculated sea battles don't match the reality!

[Azi Tohak]

Playing as the Shimazu on N/N, I'm taking on the Mori. I was always worried that their large fleet would destroy my trade network, so I have a larger fleet than is probably necessary. Anyway, I managed to hunt down a Mori fleet consisting entirely of Bow Kobaya + Mori Bow Kobaya, and I sent a fleet of ~3 BK + 2 MB + 3 SB (yeah, a pretty decent group) after them. Auto calc was slightly in favor of the Mori, and my fleet was smoked! I sent my second fleet after them (same turn) which had a very similar composition, and my guys won, but barely. WTF?

So I reloaded and fought the battle myself and totally obliterated the Mori fleet by boarding with my medium and sengoku bunes. I captured 7 of the 8 ships, and my only losses were too heavily damaged bow kobayas. My question is: how does the computer, which seems to be so good at calculating odds, so over value bow kobaya? They're lunchmeat before anything larger than they are that can board!

[econ21]

I wonder if those bow kobayas really should be boarded? If the computer played smarter, perhaps they could use their speed to keep out of danger? The test might be how your battle would be if the roles were reversed - could a player pull off a victory with just the bow ships?

Another factor might be fire arrows. Did the computer use them? Before I had that tech, I found the bow ships utterly useless. Now they are handy little terrors.

You may be right though - the autocalc may just be looking at some combat factor which does not properly allow for the fragility of the bow ships and their wimpy (in melee) archers. Like most units in TW, they will work best in combination with other units - I suspect the autocalc may not properly factor in such combined arms features (it probably adds up combat factors by unit rather than looking for a nice balance of units).

I did want to say, though, that the autocalc seems surprisingly fair to the player at least in land battles. I've used to avoid playing out grossly uneven battles and it often gives me zero (or near zero) casualties, so I don't feel obligated to go through the tedium of fighting them manually. My memory of RTW etc was that the autocalc imposed more attrition on the player in such cases.

[Azi Tohak]

The sengoku bune have their sails which mean they should be faster than the bow kobayas, right? At least as long as you're not into a head wind. I didn't see any fire arrows, so the AI either forgot, or didn't have access. The AI does seem to like to charge right into my fleet, which works fine when they have bigger ships, but not so well when I do!

I have really liked autocalc too, except when I had was defending a castle with some ashi troops (bow and spear). The Mori stabbed me in the back, and I had to defend two castles against solid ~900 man mainly samurai armies, with just a few units of ashis. I autocalcd the first one and got crushed. I think my ashis took out maybe 50 Mori. So I played the second one. My 410 ashis took out nearly 500 (!!!) mainly samurais from the 900 man army. I have no idea how other than attacked guarded walls is a bitch.