Matrix Games Forums

I thought I should reiterate an issue mentioned in the AI vrs Grappling thred as I/ve played dozens of large and small naval combats.

1. I've never seen the AI ever put out a fire or repair anytime.
2. The AI will fire weapons but only once did I see a grapple.
3. The AI almost exclusively selects grape shot and aim high. I've occasionally seen chain used high as well but almost never see aim low with roundshot. I know this from the specs on ships that strike colors.
4. Ships that strike should still be able to repair - I've only had a single ship get any action points to repair ever and he NEVER suceeded. After all, the ship has struck so the men can tend to keeping it afloat which is repair.
5. If a ship goes into battle in the same turn, repairs do not carry over. In other words, I've completely repaired shps in one encounter only to have them full of holes in the very next combat the same turn. What's the point of expending action to repair if the repairs vanish immediately?
6. Victory seems exclusively dependent on crew losses which means that I've lost battles even when capturing all the enemy ships! At the end of the turn, imagine my surprise when my badly battered but completely victorious fleet is now just captured pawns of the 'winner' of the battle?! For example, my privateer and merchant boarded and captured an enemy merchant using the boarding option. The turn immediately ends with the capture of the enemy merchant and I AM THE LOSER! My privateer is gone and MY MERCHANT captured! This happened quite often. Something rotten in victory conditions here. I also believe this is why the AI always goes for crew damage instead of rigging or hull.
7. Sunk ships still get a turn and you'll see wrecks move and fire.
8. Grappled ships NEVER attempt to ungrapple - mostly they do nothing and float with a wimper - some fire at the grapplee (is that a word?) but otherwise they are without manhood.
9. Does anyone else have a problem distinguishing friend and foe? Could the ship sails be country color or something? I can't see those little pennants very well. I also have trouble distinguishing rate size in some directions.
10. Ships always start in a checkerboard pattern and move based on initiative BUT ALWAYS top to bottom in order. This seems wrong for a move based on initiative. SOLs of the period tended to maintain very strict squadron formations of line while frigates circled the area like skirmishers. That's why the Brits were so awesome in many battles because they allowed more 'independent action' thanks mostly in part to Nelson. He allowed and sometimes planned the battle to break into independent action - a big change from following the flagship in line and turning where it turned and so on and following orders by signal from the squadron leader. Seems the ships should begin in lines bow to stern with perhaps one intervening clear hex to avoid the foulings.
11. Speaking of foulings, the AI does that a lot because of the setup and 'in-turn' method of movement and it never tries to unfoul.

Basically the AI just moves and shoots high with grape. It's so incompetant that a player with a dozen ships can take a whole fleet of 30 enemy. My French fleets of 1792 destroyed eveything in the game in a few years. I didn't even need a Navy after 1802 except for transport.

1.  I'm not sure how you'd see the AI do this necessarily.  I've trapped the code for it, and I have seen the AI use repairs.  They may not repair often enough when they are on fire; I will look at that further.
2.  The AI does grapple, as you've noted, but grappling is usually a bad tactic (it makes your ship very vulnerable), and so the AI purposely does not do it very often.  Historically speaking, in fleet actions grappling was actually very rare between ships of the line.
3.  The AI is only supposed to select canister shot at range one, and only if it is not Britain.  The AI is generally supposed to aim-high beyond range 4, and to aim low within that range (there are a few special case exceptions).  I'm not sure why you're seeing them only using canister shot and high.
4.  I don't believe there is a prohibition on struck ships' repairing.  There is a prohibition on taking actions when ships have crew levels below 25% of full crew -- something that struck ships often experience.  I suppose we might let ships with skeleton crews (or less) take actions every several turns.
5.  Ship damage does become abstracted between combats.  This should be described somewhere in the rules or the ReadMe file.
6.  A side that has all its ships captured should be forced to lose the battle (I have tested this, and last time I tested it, it did work properly.)  This calculation is independent of the will-to-fight rules, and so the other side may be forced to break because of these rules.
7.  Ships retain the movement points they received at the start of the turn regardless of what happens to them during the turn, and so can return fire even after being hulled.  Consider these a modest attempt at modeling simultaneity in a turn-based system.
8.  I've never personally seen an AI ship do nothing when it is grappled, and, looking over the code, such a response actually seems to be impossible.  What you're probably seeing are ships with crew is below 25% who therefore receive no action points.
9.  I personally can see the pennants clearly.
10.  It used to be based on a more random order but several testers complained about the chaos of that -- they thought it made moving the ships in an organized way difficult -- and so we changed it to the present system.
11.  The AI does have code for unfouling, but perhaps it should give it a higher priority in relation to the other things it can do.

Eric,
Thanks for the quick reply!
1. Just to confirm since I can't prove it and only offer observation that every AI ship on fire remains on fire each and every turn as I see it smoking and the hull/rigging takes some damage. Even fire at level 1 never seems to repair and I watch the burning ships move and shoot so I believe they use all AP's for that. My sucess at putting out fires, especially lvl 1 and 2 are really excellent - probably >80% sucess rate so it seems unlikely for the AI ships to be on fire with such a high sucess rate to extinguish fires and to see a lvl 1 just keeps going for 5-6 turns. So if the AI is repairing, it's not doing fire too well. I make the same remark for fouling, loose cannon, and all other Critical hits. It seems more interested in using the APs to shoot. Perhaps the AI repair code looks at hull/rigging damage to decide and misses critical hits?

2. I also avoid grappling until the will to fight gets low but then grapple like crazy because grappled ships surrender upon retreat. Perhaps we could make the AI a little more arrgresive in this area when the opponents will to fight is getting close to breaking. Agreed it's not as historical but it will make the AI threat higher against players for game purposes.

3. Again, I am no code breaker, I would probably go insane if I tried - scratch that - already insane..... I can only say that almost every ship that I look at after striking will have grape selected and high aim. A few occasions it has been chain. Again, most striking ships are much closer to my ships when they get in that much trouble so that code of ammo selection may be working properly. However, I disagree with the use of so much grape because that's more a precurser to boarding which the AI doesn't really do since it doesn't grapple. Perhaps less emphasis on grape then as the hull crushing roundshot at close range will bring your opponent down faster. Also, in reference to the roundshot, the AI almost never fires beyond range 5. If fact, you can use the tactic of staying 6-7 hexes away and firing till the AI runs and they never fire a shot.

4. Must be the crew thing then although those few guys would be bailing and hammering like crazy to stay alive. I guess it really doesn't matter as long as they have no further effect except as floating hazards and LOS blocks and the end result of sink or not is resolved at the end. No need to waste brain cells on this one.

5. I did read that but a damaged ship FULLY repaired in one battle should be damaged at the start of another? I mean, what is repair? If damage remains at the end of a battle, critical hits and all, I can see the adjustment to the next battle to resolving some issues, perhaps even sinking for extreme damage areas like fire, dismasted and flooding but no ship should be worse in the next battle than it is at the end of a previous battle especially for minor issue like a few hull and rigging hits that are repaired during a previous engagement. After all, a turn is one month long so days could pass between battles. Fixing a mast or adding crew beyond a doctor's quick fixing probably means needing a port but replacing canvas and ropes? As an aside, can ships ever get damaged by bad weather at sea - storms and such like when the area is covered in bad weather?

6.All I can provide is the very example I gave and it happened more than once but only in battles involving merchants, privateers and/or a few frigates - Never any SOLs. Perhaps the will to fight code is too 'delicate' when counting merchants and privateers?

7. LOL! OK, working as desired although it defeats the purpose of initiative based moving since I fire first with my better action and crews on a lucky stern rake and sink the enemy before he can react only to see him rise from Davy Jones to spit back. But I accept the challenge!

8. Must be the crew thing so I would suggest that a ship with a crew below 25% simply strike immediately when grappled as it is dead anyway without AP's. If you are going to withold any APs for ships with crew below 25%, isn't that the same as giving up in game terms though in real terms I would think they would fight on until forced into surrender by dismasting, holing or a winning boarding action as numbers never told the whole story anyway.

9. I am an old man, is there any way to make them bigger? Change font? Anything would help - I need my reading glasses to see them now.....? through my oxygen tent plastic......? one eye covered in my required pirate eye patch.....? Would you believe a cute blonde's butt between me and the screen? No, I wouldn't either.

10. Ah, those whining playtesters - so be it! Still think they should operate in squadron lines.......

11. Already discussed in 1.

Great improvement over the old version - Keep up the good work!