The Naval AI

the naval AI needs to be improved

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i had 2 84 gun ships
they had 6 Trade ships 2 74 gun ships 1 80 (damaged) gun ship and 1 64 gun(i think it was 64) 4 Frigates
the fact that i had overwhelming loss chance like 1:20 yet i still won
the Naval ai Clumps together so every time they fire they hit there own ships or they cant fire at all
CA needs to add more attention to the Naval battles because the AI sucks

no one else thinks the NAI needs to be improved?

Well, seeing as they barely out-gunned you (regardless of what the autoresolve screen said), and you did have the bigger ships to begin with, regardless of overall numbers of guns, I'm not sure anybody really is very surprised that you won, no.

i didn't out gun them i had 2 84 gun ships
they had 2 74 1 80 (54 because it was damaged) 1 64 and 4 frigates and 6 trade ships
i just captured part of the merchant ships and my ships are barley damaged
and if you ever fought a battle when the AI has a lot of ships you notice how it clumps

That's what I would say. Really it was you that outgunned them, not the other way around. You could concentrate your fire on a few ships, while many of theirs were smaller with weaker hulls and guns. Your guns were more powerful than all but two of their ships (given that one of theirs was damaged), and your hulls were stronger. Frigates don't do anything to ships of the line, and trade ships are a complete joke.

The naval AI does a decent job in what I've seen. I barely won with 4 122-gun 1st rates against 5 106-gun 1st rates in one of my battles.

I don't think I've ever seen the enemy ships shoot each other, might just be a coincidence.

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I did just now see something unusual. I had a very large naval battle Russia (me) vs France. I probably outgunned the enemy a bit, as I had 5 80 guns, 7 50-74 guns, and 5 frigates, while they had about the same number of ships but 7-8 frigates. However they also had 3 100+ ships.

I was expecting to lose probably all of my frigates and possibly 2-3 ships of the line, but hopefully replace them with captured ships, including some 100+ ships that I can't build. Well my battle was going well, I had my ships lined up in 3 lines, arranged where they could shoot through each other. They were pretty close together but not close enough to threaten each other with explosions or get in each others way.

All of a sudden during the battle, the AI decides it doesn't like how the battle is going and rushes its entire fleet STRAIGHT THROUGH my fleet at max speed (I was downwind from the enemy) My ships kept shooting, and the enemy frigates started exploding like fireworks under the close range broadsides from the heavy ships. This caused a chain reaction through both fleets (which was more like a single blob of ships at this point), and at least 15 ships exploded in about 3 minutes.

I still made it out with my admiral, most of my 80 guns, and 2 captured first rates. But that was one costly battle.

Yeah, ships seem much more likely to explode than in ETW. I had a British fleet led by the starting 122 gun and 106 gun First Rates. Those two got into a pell mell with the van from the French fleet and both ships ended up catching on fire and exploding (killing Nelson). My 74s managed to go on to win the battle, but it was quite a near run thing. Ships of that size almost never exploded in ETW. I have to say that I like this, however. It makes charging the line more of a risky proposition, and it is also historically accurate. The 118 gun Orient exploded during the Battle of the Nile.

I love the naval battles in NTW, with Tyrants mod (he tweaked the manuevering of the ships, along with some other stuff ---- definitely recomending to anyone )

I agree on the explosions, I have lost more then 1 ship to fire or explosion. As an examle in one of my campaigns for GB I after a long and fierce battle with Spain I managed to grab hold of Santisima Trinidad (damn that is a big freaking ship 122 cannons).....had it repaired and in the next naval battle, it got caught between a 38gun Frigate and a Indiaman......since it shot out both FULL BROADSIDEs...the 38gun Frigate went bye bye spreading fire and debris in a wide range, guess what happened Santisima Trinidad caught fire and ....eversince..I keep the any ship bigger then 74...at least 3-4 ship lengths away from any smaller enemy ship

One drawback of the above modded changes is the manuevering ability of the bigger SoL.....anything bigger then 74 is turning in a radius of a small Island...but still worth it...they really can take a loads of shots and small ships with 18p cannons are just scratching the paint or with a lucky shot kill a few crewmen.

Almost has the same feeling as TROMs or DarthMods naval changes back in ETW.

If anyone should try this mod with Naval battles, get a Carronade Frigate and watch how it flyes on water.....BEAUTIFUL

You may have only had two 84-gun ships but you're forgetting the HUGE jump in hull strength between the different classes of ships. It makes all the difference.

The NAI/Nye/Nigh is one place I can't fault either ETW or NTW. I recall several occasions where I strolled into a battle thinking it was going to be a breeze, and then being forced to withdraw my last few remaining burning, swiss-cheesed ships like a dog with a tail between it's legs.

The naval AI in N:TW is much better than in Empire. The gun ranges are also greatly improved + a reduced and mostly even chain shot range has altered the dynamic completely.

Aside from that the enemy will try and line up and bring their broadsides to bear at their maximum range, with Empire they would get as close as possible by which time you usually had them dismasted or shot to hell before they'd even fired.

I micromanage everything and I am finding that the ships (player controlled) do not like getting too close to each other any more (the one behind will just stop) which I do find frustrating, especially as there's clearly space and a large part of my strategy is bringing multiple broadsides to bear simultaneously. Other than that though I'd say that the combat and AI is greatly improved over Empire.

The national paint jobs are very sweet and the ship classes seem more historically accurate also (esp. 5th rate).

hmmm i didn't take into account the hull strength jump
but still the AI still does get confused when they have a large number of ships
and they spam trade ships to attack me somtimes

I think too that the NAI is much better in NTW than ETW in battles, but in the campaign the Naval assets are awfully left unused...

In ETW CAI for Fleets was spot on. You had blockades, raids, Task forces engaging other fleets and (very) occasionaly transporting troops. Now the only thing fleets do are ferrying troops, sometimes it seems to nowhere!

Also, except from the initial fleets, I see that there are a lot of fleets comprised solely of tradeships. I have not met any "newly" built fleets including any substantial warships of higher Tiers

Ok, there are the casual 6th & 5th rates...but these are no match for the player's 1st and 2nd raters

I play H/N

Originally Posted by MaKoS

Also, except from the initial fleets, I see that there are a lot of fleets comprised solely of tradeships. I have not met any "newly" built fleets including any substantial warships of higher Tiers

Ok, there are the casual 6th & 5th rates...but these are no match for the player's 1st and 2nd raters

I play H/N

3 months after the beginning of my campaign in ETW I still don't see AI fleets with ships bigger than 5th rate. Except 2 second rates that after I captured them the AI never filled with new additions. Most factions will still use galleons everywhere. I can't wait 2 years untill that happens even if it will. Life is going on, I want my play on the day...and I am getting old. This game is just...

To top it up, in American theatre, there almost are NO SHIPS sailing. That's partly because the american towns in North America are made so small and even without ports except 3..for small towns. And of cource GB will launch fleets only around London/that's how an AI faction is bound by the stupid game economy/, and this sucks to play constantly on the map in one spot. To look for a similar reconstruction of the Battle of Chessapeake where have been 28 french line ships vs 20 british is a mirage for ETW. No historicity at all. That's the biggest problem with this game. No spanish treasure fleets, no war convoys, nothing in the new world.

Probably the only solution both for ETW and NTW is to modscript a start with full fleets for all factions, fleets that have mostly line ships of all sorts from the beginning.

Wierd i have french navies constantly hounding my trade ships and when i go out to chase them off they sneak in and pirate my trade lines or blockade ports .

i seem to be having alot of naval wars going on (not much in the way of using them to transport men to other lands) but naval war over the val;uable trade roots and spots on edge of the map is keeping me very busy with my navy .

Just when i thought i had france nad there navy out of the way the spanish seem to have taken over there hounding me job. Loving it to be honest like chasing dang pirates across the seas

@MaKoS

Yup, agree with that, though I didn't find many large, powerful fleets in Empire (other than the odd Pirate ones composed of galleons). The Spanish in particular seemed to enjoy sending out solitary second rates...

Originally Posted by CerealGuy

the naval AI needs to be improved

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

i had 2 84 gun ships
they had 6 Trade ships 2 74 gun ships 1 80 (damaged) gun ship and 1 64 gun(i think it was 64) 4 Frigates
the fact that i had overwhelming loss chance like 1:20 yet i still won
the Naval ai Clumps together so every time they fire they hit there own ships or they cant fire at all
CA needs to add more attention to the Naval battles because the AI sucks

LOL, I belive u IF... u show me a GOLD win on trafalgar .... what I doubt... Fight brits on Trafalgar on historical.s battles and try to defeat that "AI who sucks".... after 10-20 tentatives, i bet u will have a different opinion =))

Uhm man that is an easy fight lol ive done it atleast a dozen times just for fun but then i spend a lot of time playing as Britain and in doing so i spend a fair amount of time and recourses on naval force's and have had a lot of practice finding the strength's and weaknesses of each ship so its pretty straightforward now for me.