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.

[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!

[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.

[Barny Bangs]

I've seen:

- Egypt invading Antioch (Rebel at that time) from Alexandria by sea. Maybe to avoid crossing through my provinces (Jerusalem / Gaza)?

- The Moors invading North Italy (?!) by sea. Not sure why they are doing this, but one of my spies ideling in Florence witnessed a full stack being unloaded at the coast.

- Venice sending their armies by sea to Rhodos

- The Danes sending a full stack to England by ship.

And that's after one hundred years with fow on...

[danfda]

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, Sicily is always excommed within the first 20 turns because they ignore the Med and try to go up the Italian peninsula. Taking on the HRE, Milan and Venice to start is just silly, and completely ahistorical (I know, lotsa arguments there, but to start I think the AI is supposed to try and follow history). As such, I've not yet seen Sicily expand beyond their starting provinces. Heck, I've only ever seen one Sicilian navy.

[Daveybaby]

Judging from these replies, it seems like the AI has no problems utilising sea travel in order to fulfil its objectives, but it does seem to have problems with *setting* those strategic objectives for itself involving overseas provinces.

So things where the trigger is focussed on a particular province - like crusades, rescuing stranded troops, or retaking provinces which have been captured by an enemy - will work ok, but when deciding where to attack next, and faced with a large number of potention choices, those involving sea routes will always come last.

It is quite possibly linked to the prefers_naval_invasions field, which would explain why britain never gets invaded, since the nations most likely to do so (france, HRE) have it set to 'no' (though the danes have it set to yes).

However, sicily has it set to yes, and as has been noted, it seems very reluctant to cross the mediterranean.