Islands aren't worth it any more

[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.

[KARTLOS]

you dont need a full stack to defend a settlement - a 2/3 stack will usually be ewasily enough to defend against a full stack. plus most isalnds are reachable from mainland settlements within a turn. the ai usually lays seige for at least a turn.

[seneschal.the]

Patch 1.0: "AI doesnt do naval invasions, ever! You only need troops in a settlement to keep minimal order on islands!"

Patch 1.1: "AI does naval invasions! He gathers up a stack and lands it on my island so I have to have a huge stack to defend it, making it useless!"

Checking my post history should reveal I am far from a CA fanboy (far, faaar) but let's have a reality check here: This is a good thing.

I am much more annoyed with the buggy war/ceasefire triggers. AI declares war, asks for ceasefire 2 turns later. A fwe turns later he declares war again, with the same stack at the same city. Asks for ceasefire. In 30 turns I had 6 wars/ceasefires with the sicilians as venice, 1.1.

The AI should hopefully take in account the defenses on the island and your naval strength in the area when doing naval invasions. Otherwise it is broken. ("here, sail here with your full stack! I only have 20 Lanternas waiting for your 3 Dhows!")

[PureFodder]

Patch 1.0: "AI doesnt do naval invasions, ever! You only need troops in a settlement to keep minimal order on islands!"

Patch 1.1: "AI does naval invasions! He gathers up a stack and lands it on my island so I have to have a huge stack to defend it, making it useless!"

Checking my post history should reveal I am far from a CA fanboy (far, faaar) but let's have a reality check here: This is a good thing.

I am much more annoyed with the buggy war/ceasefire triggers. AI declares war, asks for ceasefire 2 turns later. A fwe turns later he declares war again, with the same stack at the same city. Asks for ceasefire. In 30 turns I had 6 wars/ceasefires with the sicilians as venice, 1.1.

The AI should hopefully take in account the defenses on the island and your naval strength in the area when doing naval invasions. Otherwise it is broken. ("here, sail here with your full stack! I only have 20 Lanternas waiting for your 3 Dhows!")

My problem isn't so much that the computer attacks islands per se, it's more that it attacks them with no regard for almost anything. It doesn't care what the settlement is worth, doesn't care what's defending it and doesn't care that there are closer, poorly defended, more developed provinces to attack. The computer will throw army after army at corsica, but Sicilly technically has a land route to get there so the computer won't land troops there.

On a more possitive but still stupid note, the computer will happily empty it's entire city of all but one unit to do amphibious assaults leaving themselves stupidly open to counter attacks. It acts like there's a land border between islands and the mainland.

Islands have gone from by far the safest place to be to by far the worst place to be.

[dismal]

If things are working right, islands ought to behave like any other province in terms of the AIs interest in them. If they are on an "active border" and lightly defended you ought to be inviting an invasion. If they are securely within the borders of your empire, a light garrison ought to suffice.

The art would lie in determining which provinces the AI considers "on the border" with an island.

[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!