Islands aren't worth it any more

[PureFodder]

Before the patch taking Islands was a grand plan, the computer never seemed interested in them so you could happily take any island you want, leave a tiny garrison in it and know it was relatively secure, reap the financial gains.

Post patch, the computer seems very determined to launch naval assaults backed up by full stack armies on island provinces. Possibly even more so than across it's land borders. This results in each island province requiring a full army just to hold onto it which costs way more than the revenue from the province.....

The only remote solution I've found it to stick minimum garrisons in them and spend as little money developing them as possible. When the inevitable armies decend upon you give the island to his popefulness.

Anyone else find this problem?

[Yossarian]

I wouldn't characterise it as a "problem", it only makes the game more challenging, which is always good in my book. Though I have to say I haven't experienced big naval invasions yet. I've only faced smaller armies which have been relatively easy to deal with. But should Iraklion fall to a grand invasion I wouldn't whine about it, I'd just take it back!

[Quin]

This results in each island province requiring a full army just to hold onto it which costs way more than the revenue from the province.....

The only remote solution I've found it to stick minimum garrisons in them and spend as little money developing them as possible. When the inevitable armies decend upon you give the island to his popefulness.

Anyone else find this problem?

well...you should prevent enemy's fleets reaching your islands in the first place. That's how they were always protected, not by maning them with uber armies

[PaulTa]

If my history isn't too shabby, I do remember a bunch of normans storming an island and calling it home.

I do also recall a turkish invasion of another island that uprooted a crusading order's home base. I think that the numbers for the invasion were well past the thousands.


Seems like there is some historical precedence for massive island invasions.

[De Montfort]

The Normans of Sicily and Crusader bases in Cyprus, Rhodes and other islands in the med. Their strategic importance was huge.

I'm surprised someone thinks seaborne invasions are a problem... they were painfully absent in the full release pre patch.

[Lord Magus]

It's completely logical that someone will send his entire army to conquer an island that is worth nothing, right?

[Rothe]

This is good news!

I mean, you still can have naval superiority, of course AI might get off an invasion in one turn (move army to port, move ship to island, land) but you can still take troops to the island yourself to deal with the opposition if you do it fast (before assault).

For example, if you have northwest italy provinces you can respond to the island (the 2 islands that are one turn away from the coast) assaults by moving in your coastal troops.

To me it makes sense that it is costly to defend the island unless you have support close by that you can send in.

Also, I suspect that by using a lot of peasants you can make the garrison look big and maybe avoid some assaults alltogether. This is because AI tends to attack settlements that have small garrisons. On islands the AI rarely would have spies so it does not see what kind of troops you have, only the amount.

[PureFodder]

But that requires a huge and expensive fleet, plus islands like Sardinia and Corsica are close enough to land that you can make boats, load them up and ditch the soldiers on the island in one go....

Maybe I didn't quite explain this right;

It looks a whole lot like the computer sees islands as sharing a border with them, so they'll attack happily. A land province the same distance away that is attached to the same land mass the computer doesn't see as sharing a border so it won't attack. The computer doesn't sail an army along the coast of the mainland to assault a province further down. For Example as the English the Danes will happily sail armies to attack London and Nottingham, but they won't go after Caen.

Islands now seem to act as provinces that shares vast numbers or borders, hence making them a pain to defend and inciting more wars than you can throw a Javalin at.

[Varyar]

It's good that islands aren't the safe havens they once were, but the change highlights another issue and that is the AI's IMHO thoughtless aggression. I liked the safe islands because they gave me the chance to focus on development in order to have more fun and varied armies later on. Now, regardless of where you start, regardless of what diplomatic measures you take, regardless how many times you absolutely slaughter the enemy, the AI factions just keep coming. It's not challenging, because they send crappy, ill-prepared armies with little to no backup, and it's tedious because you're forced to fight countless of bland battles with the same boring basic units. I want real wars, I want the AI to be able to make a semi-mongol invasion with several stacks of quality troops. I don't want to sigh when I hear of transgression, I want to shudder with fear as the enemy closes on my border provinces. The closest I can come to that now is to play muslim, take the Levant and wait for the crusader stacks.

Fixing the island thing was good. Now it's time to fix diplomacy and make the AI think twice and stop its random and futile attacks.

[John Johnston]

To be fair, with every faction having a "conquer half the known world" objective, constant attacks are kinda necessary right through the game. The difference is that when the computer attacks the player with even odds, it will usually lose, and when the player attacks the computer, ze will usually win. The computer is only trying to do in the campaign what the player does. With the troops that the computer fields against me, I'd win most of the battles against my own troops, if the computer was controlling my troops and I was controlling the computer's.

Thinking about it, we might be able to get a rough idea of how much better the player is in a couple of ways:

Firstly we could fight a (large) series of test battles, with the player alternately taking either side, and see what proportion the player won with each side.

Secondly we could fight a series of battles, giving the computer progressively more and more and more troops, up until the point that the player won roughly half of all the battles fought.

If I find myself with a lot of time on my hands I'll give it a go for kicks...


(I'm sure a more sensible style of play from both players and computer would be had if the game used a "Glorious Achievements" style objective instead of the nonsense "conquer the world!" ones, and if control penalties for remote cities were greatly increased over their present level, preventing factions from becoming overlarge. But hey-ho, I guess a Europe where every ruler is the bastard child of Genghis Khan and Lucrezia Borgia will do... )

[sapi]

That's a pretty good idea, except for the fact that many players (myself included) prefer to fight with certain types of armies and would probably get slaughtered with the ones the computer fields simply because we don't like using them.

I know i'd have no chance in mp/custom battles because all my armies are heavy in either cavalry, infantry or missile (and usually both the former and the latter) and the AI always picks balanced armies.

[tenkesh]

I take it as a positive change. It was just too easy to have islands as untouchable thresholds of weath. And defending them is more fun anyway, basically all you need, is one solid army on an island and one fortress which is upgraded military and well enough defended for enemy not to get it.
In other towns just keep the military upgrade as low as possible and whenever enemy is getting to it before your army can reach it, give a hell of a fight inflict as much casualties as possible (defended by the walls you can do quite a lot of damage to the attackers with mere peasent archers and some spear militia) and just take it back with your army. The conquerors won't have a chance to bolster their ranks with new soldiers cause the cities just won't have that ability.

[Dearmad]

hm... BIG army coming to... island... hm... got it! Protect with a navy!

[Shahed]

Before the patch taking Islands was a grand plan, the computer never seemed interested in them so you could happily take any island you want, leave a tiny garrison in it and know it was relatively secure, reap the financial gains.

Post patch, the computer seems very determined to launch naval assaults backed up by full stack armies on island provinces. Possibly even more so than across it's land borders. This results in each island province requiring a full army just to hold onto it which costs way more than the revenue from the province.....

The only remote solution I've found it to stick minimum garrisons in them and spend as little money developing them as possible. When the inevitable armies decend upon you give the island to his popefulness.

Anyone else find this problem?

I have'nt found it a problem.

I sink the enemy amphibious assualts before they land. It may be a good idea to build up a navy, if you have'nt done so already. My naval bases are islands.

Iraklion controls the Central and Western Mediterranean. Rhodes controls the Eastern Mediterannean. I bring fleets back to these two ports to refit. Sunk a lot of enemy troops, so much so that amphibious assaults have ceased completely.

[Zenicetus]

Any province with a port is valuable to me for the potential income in sea trade. They start out crappy, but they can make a lot of money in the long run. A few have decent resources too, like that silver deposit on Cagliari.

As mentioned above, if you have a strong navy then they're easier to hold onto. I never plan for an expansion strategy that involves working in the central Med area, without a navy to back it up.