AI and Troop Transports

from GalCiv2 Forums
Civ III and IV got one great feature - AI NEVER let his transports move without protection, even if transport in sea seem alone then there is a submarine with him. So it fails any logic that transports are moved without protection in galciv II. Lately ai begin to assemble fleets with transports but that's a little help cuz at the beginning you can add n+1 levels on defenseless AI transports that just move to your worlds even if there ships orbiting. Why not just send some escort ships that would move with same movements speed.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Agree ... they only waste population and build time

I try to have one ship at least at every planet + 1 defending fleet at major points ... no big problem to intercept single fleets and no problem with single transporters ...

The AI would surprise me if they come with 2 or 3 transporters at the same time + 2 fleets (of good ships) ... because then I would really run into problems

But to be fair I play at bright level at the moment ... have not tried intelligent yet ...
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah this was being discussed in a different thread yesterday. I'm sure Stardock is taking notes; I wouldn't be surprised if this changes in the next build.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I really do hope that this can be resolved as I have found that evenwhen you are at war the enemy continues to send thier transport troops out unguarded, then again I am only playing at the lower levels, maybe it changes at the later ones...?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In the game I'm in now (huge, normal intelligence, started with max races), pretty deap into the game and we're down to 7 empires with 1 of those being almost finished off. After I accepted to defend an allied lesser race (the last one alive), all hell broke loose because there were so many alliances. So the races are split in two groups nuking it out all ways. I'm fighting off the 2nd, 3rd and 6th on two flanks at the same time for a good while, so I've partially retreated to the borders of my territory and no longer see everythign going on deep in the territories of my enemies when out of nowhere the #3 (torians) launch an all out assault with 5 troop transports accompanied by 6 fleets of ships as well as a couple of fleets from their ally, the #2 Arceans. Even though I was allied with the others, no one was their to help me fend them off even though I had been helping snipe enemy fleets attacking my allies.

So yeah, sometimes the AI protects the transports but even though it did in this case, it made the mistake of letting the transports get ahead of the fleets so I was able to 1) buy and launch a few ships on the destination planets which weren't defended seeing as I had so many fronts to defend, and 2) shoot down 4 of the 5 transports before the fleets caught up.

In two cases the transports were defended by really lame fighters which were no match for my basic large ship. Why even bother? There are obviously ajustments that can be made to help the AI better plan the invasions...
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is a strange factor here. I have seen both ways happen. For the record, I play at Tough.

Sometimes the AI sends a stream of solo transports after they have taken the defense from one of your planets.

Other times they send in fleets and keep them in the area to protect the incoming transports and have fleets along the route in. The Altarians shocked me while I was playing the Drengin with some truly evil examples of how the AI could do this when it tried - all transports were guarded, all were in fleets of transports with a fighter fleet on top - maybe the AI is just sometimes lazy!!
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If the AI starts escorting transports, then the Dread Lords campaign scenarios need some nerfing.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It seems that AI assemble fleet with transport just cuz there was ttran and some ship around, and ifthere would be two transport he'll assemble 2 tran fleet. That's for sure a bad choice for realism, even in dreadlords - if it was possible to make only 10 Dreads available to transport it may be possible to make transport ships like 30 logistics-worth so noone can join/guard them.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
That's how I won the campaign.  Just create a Hawkeye (long sensors) and an intercepter (fast, 1 lazer) and just kill their transports.  Keeps the DL from growing and you can build up.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

If the AI starts escorting transports, then the Dread Lords campaign scenarios need some nerfing.


That's a big 10-4.  Also, they don't handle photon torps very well.  At least in my campaign.  That's what turned the tide for me.  I was researching and researching, finally realized armor or defenses was a waste of time vs the DL.  Somewhere I traded for photon torps from someone.  Later finally took some time to visit the tech tree and saw that the torps were way advanced from where I was at so I just stopped researching weapons.  Game was over, with logistics of 20, I put 6 3 photon equiped(15damage) small ships in a fleet and they couldn't touch me.  Took out fleets of 2 DL battleships with only 1 or 2 lost!
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Even escorted transports look pale - their guards are almost every time weaklings - interceptors or such -_-