Does/Will the AI ever attack by sea?

**Shahed** · 12-04-2006, 01:47

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 12-04-2006, 18:00

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** · 12-04-2006, 18:14

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** · 12-04-2006, 19:42

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** · 12-04-2006, 19:53

Originally Posted by Spino

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** · 12-05-2006, 01:06

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** · 12-05-2006, 01:21

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