Does/Will the AI ever attack by sea?

[Quickening]

I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't had the AI land troops on Britain before. Not in my Scots campaign nor my English one. This means that once you control the whole of Britain you can never be destroyed. Has anyone ever seen the AI land troops on Britain? And if not, do CA intend to fix this in the coming patch?

EDIT: By the way, Im playing on Very Hard.

[Daveybaby]

Same here - never seen it.

Actually, trying to remember if i've ever seen the AI take any of the mediterannean islands, but i havent been down that way much. Anyone seen this for certain?

[jimmyM]

Crusades sometimes mount sea-based invasions...though usually they're dropped off some distance away...I think I've seen Venics take rhodes, though could be wrong...

[zulukiller]

Ive seen the AI deploy diplomats by sea but never an army.

[TB666]

Have seen the AI do a naval invasion a few times.

[Quickening]

Okay just back from my Scottish campaign. The English did in fact send a huge army from France to reinforce London which I was laying siege to. Impressive. However, is this because that was their land in the first place? I mean, will say France or Denmark ever land troops there? Im going to start a war just to find out.

[PseRamesses]

I´ve seen the AI load and unload agents and merchants but never a single soldier. It´s a pity.

[Faenaris]

Just had a Moorish army disembark right at my fortress at Tunis. And it was a big army. Curses!

[past caring]

Just had a Moorish army disembark right at my fortress at Tunis. And it was a big army. Curses!

Aye, was just about to say - Venice has Crete in my game and I'm certain they don't start with it.....

[Varam]

Actually, Venice does start with Crete. I have seen them ship troops from it to the continent, though.

[nameless]

Okay just back from my Scottish campaign. The English did in fact send a huge army from France to reinforce London which I was laying siege to. Impressive. However, is this because that was their land in the first place? I mean, will say France or Denmark ever land troops there? Im going to start a war just to find out.

It's a last resort for the AI.

Since we have landbridges all over the place except for some islands, the AI prefers to use land invasions first. AFterwards, they'll start naval invasions if necessary.

I mean it is risky to send a fleet with a full stack through the sea when it could easily be intercepted and sunk. This is probably how the AI thinks.

[dopp]

Constantinople just got sacked in my VH/VH campaign by endless waves of Egyptian jihads arriving by boat. The Turks and Egyptians are at war, so they can't use the land bridge I guess. The Byzantines would kill off an entire jihad stack, only for another boat to arrive 2 turns later with another full jihad.

[Midnight]

I sank a Moorish Jihad ship, which would have caused untold damage had it landed near its target (Constantinople).

The only other use of boats I've seen is the Venetians shipping a diplomat around, though.

[Alexander: The hellenic empire]

I am currently playing as the Byzantines and want to tell ya that the Egyptians have been sending over armies (during jihads) in ships. I also once saw the Russians shipping troops to modern-day Turkey! (PLAYING ON DIFFICULT-DIFFICULT). When playing on lower levels such things happen only during jihads or crusades. In my English campaign the French nor Danes have ever crossed. Does seem too unrealistic, England's tough to take and does have the resource one could get elsewhere.


:__________________________________-

This games's great!!!!

Better than RTW, which tells ya something!

[Shahed]

I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't had the AI land troops on Britain before. Not in my Scots campaign nor my English one. This means that once you control the whole of Britain you can never be destroyed. Has anyone ever seen the AI land troops on Britain? And if not, do CA intend to fix this in the coming patch?

EDIT: By the way, Im playing on Very Hard.

The AI uses the navy to transport agents and armies all the time in my current Turk game. Egyptians land diplomats in Constantinople instead of walking. The Byzantines reinforce armies from Greece to Nicea etc... nothing huge, but they only have 5 ships ayway, rest are somewhere at the bottom of the Med, or more likely washing up on the Anatolian coastline.

It could use it more though, sure it does.

[cambrax]

Corsica and Sardiania have stayed rebel in every single game I've played, until I got there (sometimes 50-100 turns in). Same for Rhodes. Really, Milan, Sicily or someone should be grabbing them right at the start but the AI never seems to bother.

I have also never seen the british isles invaded. Even with the AI being super cautious abut sea travel, Denmark or France at least should really have a go at some point.

The main thing I see the AI do with ships is start pointless little wars by blockading your ports for a turn, and then immediately suing for peace. It's my only major gripe with the campaign part of the game, actually.

[geala]

An egyptian ship landed a jihad army near my city of Marrakesch a few turns before which was very clever.

Since then the full stack is standing beneath the city walls which is not so clever. Perhaps they are waiting for naval reinforcements (as I was suddenly in war with the three muslim factions + the Mongols there may be more to expect).

I will use them as guinea-pigs for my new musketeers after the end of The Simpsons.

Other than this I never saw the AI using ships for shipping armies.

[Spino]

I rather like the fact that the AI does not resort to mounting massive amphibious invasions on a regular basis in MTW2. It is far better than having the AI send out understrengthed stacks on fleets all the time. I lost count how many times the AI did this during an average campaign in both the vanilla and modded versions of RTW. Huge amphibious invasions were the exception to the rule back in the Medieval period so I really don't have a problem with the AI's reluctance to getting its feet wet.

One thing for sure is that the land bridges on MTW2's strategic map go a long way to improve gameplay, especially as far as the AI is concerned.

[Quickening]

One thing for sure is that the land bridges on MTW2's strategic map go a long way to improve gameplay, especially as far as the AI is concerned.

I agree. You know I had a heart attack when I heard about them. I thought that CA actually intended to change geography and have actual landbridges in those places!

[Kraxis]

Well it seems that Jihads and Crusades will get onto ships more often, and I think it is because of the easy access to cheap merc ships. Ships are after all rather expensive, so a large navy (which is certainly needed for a large army) might be tough for the AI factions to scrape up.
The fleets they use against me are rather big, but they tend to use them to keep me from building a navy (hence I can't ship anything around).

And lastly I think the AI has a preferance to attack armycarrying ships. Wheneve I load troops onto ships, the AI factions swarm them.

[Decker]

I was playing as England in my first campaign on m/m and I had all of the island(s) under my control when all of a sudden a decent sized Danish army landed right next to Caernarvon where my garrison was wholy unprepared(seriously they didn't even need ladders or towers to take it, just a ram would suffice along with one unit of dismounted knights, it would've be toast). Luckily they left after 3 turns just standing there doing nothing while I scrambled an army together to throw them out(or at least try to). I would've taken a pic since I know you guys have talked about this earlier but I didn't know how to, but when it happens next time...I'll be prepared

[SirGrotius]

I've seen the Byzantines send armies by sea--not huge ones, but significant enough for me to blinke an eye.

[Zoltan]

My grain of salt:

- Have seen venice send ships to repatriate their crusader troops from the jerusalem area.

- Have seen venice again send a full stack by sea to retake rhodes from the rebels.

- The English keep sending full stacks at me (french) accross the channel.

So the AI does use sea travel, however it might be only in some specific circumstances, or to achieve some kind of faction specific objective...

I don't think the AI will very often have the means, balls or motivation to try and kick the brits off their island, but has anyone seen it happen ever?

[Icespy]

I'm half surprised they didn't put a landbridge between France and England.

[Wallas]

In my games the ai has never taken the mediterranean islands from rebels. Nor they have never made any supprising attacks by boats. The ai may have crusader army boat transport code made and ai code for the english but the rest of the ai just don't use boats for normal attacks.

[Oaty]

Sicily is prime for taking those islands, while only sharing a border with venice, and pretty safe with the papal border. Has anyone ever seen the Sicilans expand? Especially with Corsica and Sardina just a hop skip and a sack away from Sicily.

[Debe2233]

I've seen the AI ship crusader armies all the time, i often see a boat skim past at high speed leaving a tidal wave in its wake with a full deck of jeering knights but i've never seen a non crusader army do it.

The sicilians in my moor game have taken the whole of italy with the exception of rome, they currently own half of the HRE and currently fighting Milan for their half of France and yet they havent taken either of the island settlements.

[Merlin's Apprentice]

could it be that islands dont have borders per se
the Ai is only concerned with its borders? so it ignores islands?

[KARTLOS]

Sicily is prime for taking those islands, while only sharing a border with venice, and pretty safe with the papal border. Has anyone ever seen the Sicilans expand? Especially with Corsica and Sardina just a hop skip and a sack away from Sicily.

no - i think that is a big issue. sicily often do shit as they dont expand - once ive seen the sicilians expand northwards, taking milan, venice and bolgna, but that is a fucking difficult way to expand hence why it rarely hapens.

they should go after the islands and the poorly defended african coast settlements - in fact if you play as the sicilians that is what is suggested to you so that should be in the ai's priorities.

[Lusted]

Hmm, after looking over the descr_sm_factions.txt file in the early released text files, it looks like most factions bordering the sea(England, Scotland, Sicily, Moors, Byzantium etc) have the prefers_naval_invasions field set to yes.