Trade Theatre Usage Analysis

[jsberry]

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

[Didz]

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

No, at least not in my experience, and I think thats the gist of the problem. By rights factions should be fighting over these trade resources but they aren't allowed to. That just makes the parking of large fleets in the trade theatres doubly dumb. In many cases they don't even raid their enemies trade out of the zone.

[Fisherking]

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

It did pre-patch. I don’t know if it was nerfed or what. I had previously had pirates and other factions attack trade spots but it has not happened since the patch.

[anweRU]

I never saw the AI attack ships in trade spots, pre- or post-patch.

[Ordani]

AI navies never attacked anything parked on a trade spot. If you moved out of the spot anyone in intercept range would jump you. The trade spots are probably classified as some non-combat resource like a school or similar, likely related to why splitting fleets on them was so buggy.

[mmk]

Very good research work!

Also very intersting, that you too came across the fact that the French fleet in Rotterdam is never attacked by the Dutch, therefore the Netherlands become pretty useless as a trade partner after around 6 - 8 turns in the game.

[Didz]

The thing that surprises and disappoints me most about these results is that, even when the player deliberately restricts his own expliotation of the trade zones, the AI is completely incapable of making proper use of the opportunity.

In theory, up to five AI controlled factions could and should have been able to match Britains performance in terms of trade revenue, and yet the only one that comes close is Portugal which manages to make 1,682 per turn, compared to my 11,727.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

The very bad management of resources is one of the weaker points of the game. The AI is very good in building large fleets without any use. The reason why the 13 colonies always loose, is because they build a large fleet to protect their shores from naval invasions against the Indian battle fleets, you know all those 100 guns canoes. The enormous upkeep makes it impossible to defend its regions against the natives.

An other reason that weakens the AI is its priority in construction. The AI wants to build as much as possible churches and fisheries. A fishery is absolute worthless for the AI. I have seen Hanover build one instead of a trade port on its only port site. It shouldn't be that difficult to program the AI to build primarily trade ports. Population growth can be given an AI bonus. At the moment the AI is hardly making some money from trade. There are some exceptions.

[anweRU]

The thing that surprises and disappoints me most about these results is that, even when the player deliberately restricts his own expliotation of the trade zones, the AI is completely incapable of making proper use of the opportunity.

In theory, up to five AI controlled factions could and should have been able to match Britains performance in terms of trade revenue, and yet the only one that comes close is Portugal which manages to make 1,682 per turn, compared to my 11,727.

That is probably Portugal's starting fleet, which it didn't recruit. Portugal starts out with one trade node in Brazil and the Ivory Coast.

I've seen a 12-ship Swedish stack, with only two indiamen, the rest being 5th and 6th rates. Highly inefficient...

[Slaists]

The thing that surprises and disappoints me most about these results is that, even when the player deliberately restricts his own expliotation of the trade zones, the AI is completely incapable of making proper use of the opportunity.

In theory, up to five AI controlled factions could and should have been able to match Britains performance in terms of trade revenue, and yet the only one that comes close is Portugal which manages to make 1,682 per turn, compared to my 11,727.

The part of the AI that deals with trade nodes is REALLY crappy... Whenever I fight a stack of AI's ships on the nodes I find out that most of the ships there are war ships not earning any revenue.

AI factions lose trade ships while auto-fighting pirates/other AI factions. On several occasions I've fought AI's 5-10 ship stacks near Europe/in the Mediterranean, which were composed entirely of Indiamen. For some reason, AI fails to send these to the trade theaters and rather uses Indiamen stacks as warships whereas real warships end up sitting on trade nodes. I guess, sloppy
AI logic (lack of it) is behind that absurdity.

Another factor that does not help AI build economy is abundance of fishing and war ports, severely limiting AI's trading capacity and making it's trade very risky since a single boat can destroy/block the entire trade of a faction owning a single trading harbor.

[jsberry]

splitting fleets on them was so buggy.

Not "was" - it still is!