AI unable to use ships for transports;

[PseRamesses]

Now I´ve seen this behaviour enough to state that the AI doesn´t understand how to use ships for transporting units: Milan walks a crusade from Genoa through France, Spain and N africa to reach the crusade target Tunis. Same thing with Venice and Sicily.
Has this behaviour been corrected with the 1.1 patch?

[sapi]

Yes.

With 1.1 applied the ai will regularly launch naval invasions.

If anything, they do it a bit too much.

[pevergreen]

They do...

Portugal has no reason to invade allied England, and then walk the full stack army down to Portugal again...

[Mithradates]

They just plain attacked me i was allied to them, they seem to have a fixation on Canarvan Castle.

[HoreTore]

Only naval invasion I have EVER seen, is Spain launching a crusade on me by ship....

[JCoyote]

I see AI factions doing it to each other all the time. And I've killed plenty of enemy ships that had agents or armies aboard.

[Lord Ovaat]

PseRamesses, since the patch, I've seen the AI become quite aggressive with the use of transport, to the point where I now find myself being forced to garrison islands. It also seems to have no qualms about launching armies onto the mainland. However, I have never seen them transport a crusade army anywhere. In fact, in my current Byz campaign, I now have three armies (HRE, Milan, Venice) moseying towards Antioch through Asia Minor, while Venice has just invaded Iraklion. I don't believe the AI is treating Crusades and Jihads as ocean-going. Probably needs fixed.

[TevashSzat]

The ai does use ships to transport armies frequently. I have seen Sicily take the islands west of Italy, the papal states take valencia, the portugese take some region in Britain, the Byzantines invade iraklion as well as a number of other instances.

[HoreTore]

I've never seen Sardinia, Corsica and Rhodes being taken by the AI... At what turn do they take them?

[TevashSzat]

Sardina and corsica are always taken by either the moors or the sicilians for me before turn 30. You need the patch though. Rhodes doesn't get taken too frequently since the ai needs to take that castle north west of it first, but it does happen midway throught the campaign.

[HoreTore]

I have the patch, but the AI never ever seems to care about the islands...

[TevashSzat]

that is wierd, maybe they are fighting so early that they are too preocupied with their enemy to be taking rebel provinces

[ezekiel6]

I started a new campaign a few weeks back as Scotland and was surprised to find that when I went to take the new rebel provinces I had created in Ireland they had all been occupied by Portrugal. It must have been one of the first things they did, build an army from the off, then ship it out to Ireland. I though it was pretty cool. The King was there too.

[TevashSzat]

Yea, portugal seems to have a strong affinity for Britain now which is kinda wierd

[nameless]

I actually got annoyed with it so I went into the descr_SM file and set the "prefer naval invasion" for spain and Portugal to NO.

Now Spain and Portugal focus on the mainland which they should be and not on the English isles. In one of my games Portugal has actually taken control of the entire spainish country.


I have the patch, but the AI never ever seems to care about the islands...

The game isn't consistent for everyone. In some of the campaigns I've tested, the AI goes berserk over the lines, another game the AI stays a bit more passive. If you wait a bit longer or try a new campaign you'll most defintely see a different AI.

[HoreTore]

The game isn't consistent for everyone. In some of the campaigns I've tested, the AI goes berserk over the lines, another game the AI stays a bit more passive. If you wait a bit longer or try a new campaign you'll most defintely see a different AI.

I've probably played around 7-8 campaigns to turn 100+ postpatch, and I've never seen Sardinia and Corsica been taken. The things I have seen are:

- Sicily took Tunis in one campaign
- Scotland landed a fleet in rebel Bruges in one french campaign
- Spain and portugal usually sends their crusades by sea. sometimes they have become stuck on the worng side of Gibraltar though. Probably du to moorish ships in and around Gibraltar
- Can't remember who did it, but I think Nicosia was taken by someone one time
- I saw a german crusade on it's way to jerusalem in the baltic sea once

And that's all the AI fleet activity I have ever seen..

[PseRamesses]

So the conclusion seems to be that without the patch naval invasions is non existant both with and without crusades. With the patch the AI seems to go over the top with naval invasions and, according to HoreTore, naval crusades does occur.
I didn´t install the patch due to some heavy critisism over the boards from the community. I do hope the next patch adresses theese issues. Instead I use the Regnum Dei Iron.mod, Shaba´s diplo-mod and some quickfixes for animations and 2-handed units but none of theese adresses this problem.

[Empirate]

In my campaign, I've seen the Scots take Oslo and fortify it; they had more fleets than me most of the time, to the point I didn't dare move my navies anywhere anymore. The Danish seem to use navies to blockade ports and transport agents a lot, but don't seem to need naval transport much, as they're busy killing Germans. The Spanish have a single, small-sized fleet that tries to blockade my ports and not do much else. Almost everybody else does nothing with their navies. But then, I haven't seen much of the Mediterranean yet, and my map-trading suggests that Sardinia has recently changed hands from Sicilians to Milanese, so I guess the AI is using ships just right.

[Calavera]

Yes.

With 1.1 applied the ai will regularly launch naval invasions.

If anything, they do it a bit too much.

True. In my last game as Portugal I was under constant threat from invasions by Sicily, and both England and Scotland landed big stacks in the north, although it was 10-15 turns before they did anything other than stand there.

Oddly, I don't think the ai uses them for Crusades & Jihads. Or at least thats my explanation for seeing the Moors launching a Jihad on Constantanople, and then trying to get there by marching on a path through France, Italy & the Balkans. Must have needed the exercise...

[HoreTore]

What files are changed for the Naval Invasion stuff? I'm thinking I might be running the game with a modified prepatch file, thus not having the naval AI of the patch...

[EKKM]

Hi all,
Playing as Spain on M/M (first time playing any TW game) and I took Corsica and Sardinia around turn 35 or so. On turn 50ish Sicily invaded both islands while I was engaged in a war with the Milanese and Moors. Neither the Moors or Milan has done a naval invasion to date but Sicily seems to re-launch one every time I retake the islands.

I decided to let them camp out their armies on those islands and navally invade Palermo instead, I figure I'm ahead on the deal so far. I haven't been able to focus my full attention on them due to the large armies I have to maintain in Northern Italy, but Milan is almost done so soon I'll be able to focus my full attention on those upstarts.

[LordKhaine]

I've probably played around 7-8 campaigns to turn 100+ postpatch, and I've never seen Sardinia and Corsica been taken.

Here is a screenshot of lots of AI units invasing Sardinia ('http://www.zen17212.zen.co.uk/Pics/MTW2/party.jpg'). Here is another ('http://www.zen17212.zen.co.uk/Pics/MTW2/party2.jpg').

Two seperate campaigns, same flood of invasions to Sardinia. In the other campaigns I've seen a similar flood of activity around that island, and I'm not alone. There's even an entire thread about that one island being constantly invaded by sea ('https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=78705').

Seen a number of invasions in various places postpatch, but Sardinia seems to be vogue this season.

[HoreTore]

I want to see that too! ~:mecry:

I really can't understand why that never happens in my games...

[Calavera]

I want to see that too! ~:mecry:

I really can't understand why that never happens in my games...

Start a game as one of the Italian factions. Then, take Sardinia. Wait a few turns and then they should start showing up.

[HoreTore]

Start a game as one of the Italian factions. Then, take Sardinia. Wait a few turns and then they should start showing up.

Done that a zillion times, never seen anything at all...

I've looked through the files I've changed, can't really see anything wrong there...

[Foz]

Done that a zillion times, never seen anything at all...

I've looked through the files I've changed, can't really see anything wrong there...
How about... unpack the 1.1 file and then put your changes back in. I'd tell you what the changes were if I was sure myself, but I'm not...

[DanMasey]

The Sicilians and Moors are active in Sardinia in some of my campaigns. It’s strange, in some campaigns there are many attacks, but in others nothing at all happens. I’m not sure why it is… I like to take all of the islands though, as they are great for setting up Crusading armies. Rhodes especially! Whenever I take that it’s never been attacked excluding the port.

[TevashSzat]

This discrepancy between campaigns shouldnt happe. Maybe everyone is playing a different language in their campaigns and it is getting messed up that way. I btw am playing the english one in us

[dph948]

I too have seen the AI using their navies for transport, but it seems from the other posts that crusades/jihads rarely, if ever, use transports. In a game as Egypt, I saw Venice use navies to send troops to Smyrna and Rhodes, but French and Holy Roman crusades marched across the Dardanelles.

One possible explanation:
I dont know about the rest of you, but sometimes I see AI stacks with 22 units, especially crusade armies with the potential for plenty of cheap mercs. However, a fleet can only hold 20 units, perhaps making fleets unable to carry the average crusade army. The only fix I could see would be stopping the AI from making these 22 unit stacks.

[TevashSzat]

22 unit stacks? i am pretty sure that the max is just twenty....even for the ai

[dph948]

Both in RTW and M2, I've seen 22 units in an AI army, I have no idea how it works, but I can't have been the only person that's seen this? Its usually with a general in charge, from my experience.

[pilum]

The AI seem to know how to launch naval invasions, but they don't know how to use ships just to ferry troops around. A number of times I've seen the AI decide to invade, but by the time they get there the circumstances have changed (nations have made peace or the target is no longer weakly garrisoned). So the recently disembarked army will just sit there forever rather than getting back on the ship. I've seen examples of this both on islands (eg Sardinia) and on the mainland (eg Scots landing near Antwerp)

[R'as al Ghul]

I want to see that too! ~:mecry:

I really can't understand why that never happens in my games...

What difficulty level are you playing at?
I'm playing VH/VH and I'm seeing naval invasions all the time. So many that I've grown sick of it because they make no sense at all. It's all due to that insane "force invasion" code.
I'm playing portugal and I've been invaded by sea by Scotland, England, France, Milan, Sicily, Venice. The Pope also visited shortly to check if Valencia is still rebel. After taking Tunis on a Crusade, it became a regular pilgrimage location for all sorts of nations. Not only do the Milanese and the Sicilians pay me visits (parking stacks outside the castle), no the Byzantines joined them as well.
What's really annoying me are the invasions by Scotland and England. Just because I share a border with them, have three enemies and 4 turns peace with them, means they will attack. It doesn't matter how often I beat them into submission they'll come back for more. They'll also pay me every time for a ceasefire. The negative side is that my global reputation is taken severe hits from this. Although i'm not the one who breaks those trade agreements.
:furious3:

[PseRamesses]

I dont know about the rest of you, but sometimes I see AI stacks with 22 units, especially crusade armies with the potential for plenty of cheap mercs. However, a fleet can only hold 20 units, perhaps making fleets unable to carry the average crusade army. The only fix I could see would be stopping the AI from making these 22 unit stacks.
Count the slots. There´s only 9 per row plus two exstra on the third row. 9+9+2=20

[Empirate]

That was enlightening, PseRamesses! I had always wondered about this "22 slot bug" and thought it was an unfair AI advantage! Thanks for the clarification.

[gardibolt]

In my 1.1 vanilla game, playing as English M/M the pope launched a naval invasion of Corsica and then used that as a base of operations to invade Sicily. So there's plenty of AI naval operations to be seen here.

OTOH, there is a half stack of Mongols, with a general, sitting on a ship in the Red Sea, doing nothing. Why? I dunno.

[PseRamesses]

That was enlightening, PseRamesses! I had always wondered about this "22 slot bug" and thought it was an unfair AI advantage! Thanks for the clarification.
I´m glad to make your day m8! It´s always the obvious that illudes (sp?) us.