Ever wonder why the AI might have strange build priorities for ships? If you look at the values there really is no logic to the numbers each ship has been given.

Column B is supposed to represent an initial build value which is based on cost and this is the basis for all units..... apart from ships.

Based on the Excel sheets kindly given to us by CA, one finds that the values for the ships (Dhow to Carrack) are not based on their own costs but are instead based on the cost of completely unrelated, infantry units. These being from row 125 on the Unit Def sheet (Celtic Warriors) to row 137 (Round Shield Spearman).

If you base them on the actual costs of the ships you would find the build values are suddenly very much higher, possibly even too high to be honest. Nevertheless, this explains the slightly odd build values for the various ships as their values are dependant on the cost of the unit they happen to have been linked with between rows 125 and 137.

The same is also true for the special units such as assassins, spies and the religious figures. The reason you see floods of catholic bishops in MTW is because they're tied to Saxon Huscarles, which obviously cost a lot

Take from this what you will, but it makes no sense to me. At least with v2.0 the build priorities for ships are higher than they were pre 2.0 and the AI will actually build ships. However, this is probably a result of the extra VI units being tagged on the end of the Units_prod file more than anything else.

Regards