Issue with the AI evaluation of a player's navy's strength

lilsweetcaligula

Problem statement:

CAI does not seem to properly evaluate the strength of the player's fleet. This is on Very Hard, - CAI thinks it is perfectly reasonable to attack half a stack of artillery ships with a navy of small non-artillery boats.

...And the outcome:

Expected behavior:

The AI would estimate that chances for victory are negligent, and either:
1) Do not engage
2) Summon more navies, if possible, in order to overwhelm the player's fleet

Personal analysis of the issue:

Alas, I am not a modder, but what appears to be happening is that the CAI uses the same or similar estimates as it would use for a land fight. The battle estimate would make perfect sense, had it been a land battle, since artillery without support is useless on land. However, in the naval battles - artillery ships are a force to be reckoned with.

dreagon#2903

I feel like this is mostly the case of an AI simply not being able to play as well as a human and the fact that you have so much artillery that you can ignore the very poor accuracy of the artillery. Artillery in this game is simply really powerful. I've easily won land battles that would have been a crushing defeat in auto-resolve just because I had two units of ballista with me. And its not like the AI matchup is bad. I don't remember what kind of units are part of the artillery crew but I assume that basically all those ships are capable of taking down one artillery ship if they can reach them. And with some smart play the fire ships can destroy at least two or three.

lilsweetcaligula

dreagon said:

I feel like this is mostly the case of an AI simply not being able to play as well as a human and the fact that you have so much artillery that you can ignore the very poor accuracy of the artillery. Artillery in this game is simply really powerful. I've easily won land battles that would have been a crushing defeat in auto-resolve just because I had two units of ballista with me. And its not like the AI matchup is bad. I don't remember what kind of units are part of the artillery crew but I assume that basically all those ships are capable of taking down one artillery ship if they can reach them. And with some smart play the fire ships can destroy at least two or three.

I understand your reasoning, - it makes sense. But it still seems to me as if the vast power of artillery was not being taken into account well enough by the AI.

Also, I get the feeling that the artillery ships are quite capable of ramming on their own, even if one opts out of using the artillery itself. That alone makes them a rather substantial threat.

I am not sure I still have the savegame prior to that battle, but I'm certain that dispatching the AI with ramming alone would not be a problem.

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

I personal have modded out artillery ships.

They are completely unhistorical and too accurate.

Migz

Ya, I agree with dreagon and think that the issue is more that the AI poorly handles the situation (and that the engine isn't accurately modeling a real battle using those weapons on a real sea) than that the auto-resolve calculation is very wrong.

Light, fast-moving ships crewed with javelinmen and soldiers should be able to evade the clumsy artillery shots from the Roman forces and get into melee distance, negating the artillery ships' powerful ranged attacks. Ramming.. well, that's been touched on many times over the years (e.g., too fast of turns and too fast of acceleration), and that's a problem to try to incorporate into the auto-resolve calculation by itself.

So, I think that the auto-resolve expectation of a crushing defeat inflicted on an unescorted flotilla of artillery ships at the hands of small non-artillery boats is reasonable. The superior player capabilities, and wonky simulation, turn the expectation on its head however. I wonder how many players in the same situation would fail to win at all, let alone taking only four losses. Hmm..

TheShiroOfDalton

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

I personal have modded out artillery ships.

They are completely unhistorical and too accurate.

"Too accurate"? They barely hit anything all battle. It's idiotic that an entire class of ships has been nerfed into the ground.

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

If they are so useless, why has the human player a fleet only of them, which wins every battle?

Catapult ships maybe nerved, but ballistae ships are still an very effective force in the hand of the human player.

And the bigger melee ships, which are an threat for artillery ships are only at higher wharf level available.

Two military port-chains aren´t good for the AI either as it splits up the better ships.

wil07012

If you use flaming ammunition they are very inaccurate. If you use regular ammunition they are accurate enough that 5 artillery ships can wipe out an entire fleet of transports before they get close and still have a lot of ammo left over.

I think it would be more interesting that instead of having artillery ships being their own ship type, that ballistas and onagers should be an option (similar to the choice to build scorpion and tower penteres) on later tier ships. The only reason to buy the big expensive ships is to get the full amount of troops for naval landings. Boarding with these ships is made unnecessary by ramming or simply building artillery ships.