Having trouble with AI-strategic map.

**Taran01** · March 24, 2009, 05:42 PM

I am playing United Provence's with a personal goal of causing a shooting war between England and France. That should be an easy goal considering the time frame.

I started off with friendly relations with England and made it Very friendly with a gift or two. At this point I captured the Provence held by Spain directly to the west of my starting region. I think it was Gibraltar.

I then gave that region to England because as we all know the AI does not do sea invasions, and I wanted England in mainland Europe. War between England and France has been declaired at this point. So ten turns later, and a second region bordering the first gifted to England and they have yet to build a single unit in ether region. I have been defending their interests Solely alone.

Does anyone know of a way to get England to build units in gifted regions?

**Aradius** · March 24, 2009, 06:59 PM

While the AI cannot actually carry out naval invasions, it thinks otherwise.
So why should Britain take the costly and long route and build up Flanders, when it can just recruit its best available units in London and carry them over?
Too bad it can't, but the AI doesn't know that.

**mikil100** · March 24, 2009, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by Aradius

While the AI cannot actually carry out naval invasions, it thinks otherwise.
So why should Britain take the costly and long route and build up Flanders, when it can just recruit its best available units in London and carry them over?
Too bad it can't, but the AI doesn't know that.

It seems as though CA fully thought the AI could do naval invasions then, how could they miss this huge flaw? Lmfao.

**Aradius** · March 24, 2009, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by mikil100

It seems as though CA fully thought the AI could do naval invasions then

Yep. The AI of factions with a port and an enemy that can be reached by sea builds full stacks and sends them to ports or parks them in their vicinity - under the assumption that they will be transported by ship.

With Britain, that's unfortunate, but has only the effect that it is confined to be a naval power.

In the case of the United Provinces, it's not that glaring, as their land is so small that it can use its amassed stacks as quite effective defenders of their homeland.

Spain, however, and maybe France suffer the most. Their large armies waiting to be transported eat up large sums of money every turn, severely hampering their ability to wage war on the continent. In my recent game, Spain attacked Portugal with one half full stack at a time. This army was easily defeated by Portugal, but Spain repeated the same procedure two turns later - while at the same time it had 4 to 5 full stacks of soldiers lingering in Gibraltar doing absolutely nothing. When I got them to trade me Gibraltar, the AI had to move those armies and re-assess what to do with them, and Portugal was dead two turns later.

The bug that prevents naval invasions occurred, I guess, very late before release (or it was deliberately taken out), as all the groundwork is there, and the AI was obviously programmed to use it to full extent. No idea what went wrong, though...