STW2 AI not recruiting larger ships?

[Jacobin]

Someone on twcenter points out that the STW2 AI doesn't seem to be recruiting any ships other than bow kobaya and trade ships.

Anyone else notice that (I am playing Hojo right now so haven't seen many naval battles as the trade nodes are too far away to be worth fighting for but IIRC they were all indeed with bow kobaya and trade ships).

If so its a pretty big bug...

[Jarmam]

Date's former trade fleet - now drifting wood - is pleased to inform you that the AIs willingness to hire Medium Bunes and Fire Bomb Kobayas is intact.

[Sp4]

It would be a pretty awesome bug, because bow ships are actually hardish to fight if all you can afford for a navy are a bunch of bow ships =p

Then again, using 2-3 bow ships with fire arrows to micro the out of a fleet made up of 8 medium and 2 heavy bunes is kinda funny ^^

[Jacobin]

Admittedly haven't got to mid campaign yet but still have not seen anything bigger than a BK in an enemy ship stack.

And Wako fleets made up solely of trade ships - what's the sense in that?

[Jacobin]

Date's former trade fleet - now drifting wood - is pleased to inform you that the AIs willingness to hire Medium Bunes and Fire Bomb Kobayas is intact.

Interesting because I have fought (or rather autoresolved) a couple of dozen sea battles now and the only AI ships I've seen bigger than a trade ship or BK is the Black Ship and medium bunes that I know were captured from me in previous battles.

Sure they didn't capture those MBs and FBKs from you earlier?

[Jarmam]

Positive. I never research the Way of the Sea-Art so I am incapable of building Fire Bombers - I steal them from my enemies.

Medium Bunes might have been mine.

[Jacobin]

Well just finished my Hojo campaign - in 220-odd turns fought (or rather autocalced) 90+ sea battles and in not one was there an AI ship larger than a bow kobaya.

Weird.

[Jacobin]

A long Mori campaign with many, many sea battles in which I've only used bow kobaya myself and I have seen a very few firebomb kobaya and heavy bunes turn up in enemy fleets - but not one medium or wako bune (the wako only ever field trade ships and are thus no threat whatsoever to my trade whereas before they were a constant menace).

There is clearly something very wrong (or right? - I am winning a low more battles on autoresolve since fielding only BKs than I did with fleets of medium bunes or bigger so maybe they are the most cost-effective naval unit) with the AI naval recruitment priorities.

[Jarmam]

There are definitely more Bow Kobaya fleets roaming around than before, which is absolutely excellent for me as BKs have a fairly high upkeep-to-cost ratio, leaving my enemies with significantly fewer units on the field. It also makes me cheer in excitement as I think of all those blasted Christian Battlecruiser Trade Ships that are no longer able to rout entire fleets at a time and are now even more likely to get burned to a capitulation. Good riddance.

I do however run into Fire Bombers and Medium Bunes fairly regularly as the game progresses. I also see Heavy Bunes now and then, although they are few and far between. The risk of getting barraged by actual fleets of real ships has indeed significantly decreased. I have also noticed a strange lack of Wako Pirate Ships apart from their trade vessels, which has rendered them fairly pointless - 1 Bow Kobaya can now win you entire fleets of trade ships from the once-annoying pirate faction. This does smell like a pretty severe bug.

[Jacobin]

Yes middle game I no longer need to recruit new trade ships and send them half way across the map as I know a couple of BKs lurking around the western nodes can capture 10 wako traders in far less time.

The AI also seems to be fielding many more small fleets of BKs (although I may have underestimated the presence of FBKs due to the similar card icons).

[Narcisista]

Just finished a Normal Oda Domination campaign.

My observations:

Bow Kobayas and Trade Ships seem to be the most frequent ships in AI navies.

However I still encountered a fair number of Medium Bune and probably maxed out Fire Bomb Kobayas (I don't think I needed to recruit any FBK, I just captured them).

Wako fleets seemed to consist exclusively of Wako trade Ships. If I recruited 20 trade ships the entire game it was far too many.

To my utter astonishement, the Kitabatake captured the Black Ship.

My post RD vassals were more than willing to launch naval invasions. Several of them made atempts on Shikoku, and the Uesugi sucessfully conquered Hyuga, Higo, Satsuma and Osumi.

Auto-calc seems to favour BK a lot. I had to fight many naval battles because the AI considered my medium and sengoku bune inferior to bow kobayas. I don't remember if this was the case before the latest patch.

[Yosh]

Yeah I have been kind of noticing this. I was playing as the Shimazu on hard difficulty. I had already taken over the main Shimazu island, and had just taken over the Chokosabe's small island. As I geared myself to ferry my troops to the mainland for the final glorious push to Kyoto, I found that my navy was attacked by a very large fleet... of the Takeda's bow koboya.

I had a few medium and heavy bunes (as well as a small number of fire/bow koboya), but it was still a close battle, because the AI had so many freaking koboya.

But yes it does seem strange that AI clans don't have an especially diverse navy. Somehow they still have a strong navy compared to mine >.>... But maybe that's just me.

Edit: I ended up running away from the koboya in the end, and nobody won.

[Maltz]

I started a new campaign after the March patch, and so far (year 1564) I have not fought any thing above Bow Kobaya.
And I thought it is because my enemies happened to like Bow Kobaya.
Now it makes some sense to see larger-than-before multiple fleets roaming with no tasks - because they are all Bow Kobaya?

[Jacobin]

Very late (1580s) Oda am seeing a few heavy bunes but very few medium or sengoku bunes and none of the higher tech specials.

Also sure the Ai is massively over-spamming ships in the early game to the detriment of their land forces - pre-patch Hojo were always a real challenge but now they pump out endless BKs which uselessly roam about instead of the multiple stacks of bow and yari samurai they used to field.

[edyzmedieval]

Fire Bomb Kobayas are quite common, along the Medium Bune. Sengoku Bune and Heavy Bune are rare, and I've never seen a Nihon Maru other than mine.

Oh, and a Portuguese caravel captured by Date...

[Jacobin]

On the black ship you can easily capture this on autoresolve with a stack of bow kobayas so I am frequently seeing it pop up in other clan's fleets - although as they never repair it its not that great a threat even in autoresolve battles.

[Maltz]

Update: Now I am further into my campaign (year 1566), and I can see AI carrying various larger ships.
Somehow AI does not build medium bune, so that's probably why people see lots of bow kobaya.
But the AI does use sengoku bune, fire bomb kobaya, heavy bune, and nanban trade ship.

[Nelson]

I've never seen a Nihon Maru other than mine.

Only the shogun can have the Nihon maru and the shogun at game start is landlocked. Another clan would need to become shogun before you or the Ashikaga shogunate would need to get a port somehow. I don't think the Ashikaga ever captures provinces.

[Jacobin]

I have seen both Nihon Marus and Great Guard units in other factions - all they need to do is capture Kyoto and hold it for a year and as I am a slow but steady player this frequently happens.

I have however never seen a Nanban trade ship pre- or post-patch - possibly because I've mostly played western clans and always eliminate the Christian factions before they build any (even in my current Oda campaign Shoni unwisely declared war on me and I took the opportunity to conquer all of Kyushu).

[edyzmedieval]

Only the shogun can have the Nihon maru and the shogun at game start is landlocked. Another clan would need to become shogun before you or the Ashikaga shogunate would need to get a port somehow. I don't think the Ashikaga ever captures provinces.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, I've had two clans become Shogun in my games (apart from me) and never encountered their own Nihon Maru.