Posted this question in the Modding Questions thread as well. Looking for anyone that is familiar with the naval AI - I'm out of ideas.
How do I encourage the British naval AI to actually use their fleet for naval interdiction? I've been able to make them dock up where I want them to, but they absolutely refuse to intercept enemy SUB or TRA fleets. Command cap is set to 18, so the fleet in question (21 units) is operating at a stacking penalty. Is this the problem? When I load as the UK, the units have no mission set.
This is my AI switch, the AI is responding correctly to the "base" parameter but doesn't seem to be interested in patrolling the "target" zones:
[/SPOILER]
Yeah I saw your earlier post and was thinking and trying to remember what I did in Homeland to get the AI to behave as I wanted. It took me months, if I remember correctly. This is now many years later and I've been looking back on some of the AI files I did at that time. For instance I had Italy invading Spain by naval invasion and I remember the Italian navy had no problems attacking the Spanish navy.
I also had naval invasions of the USA, the USA navy attacking the Jap navy on the West Coast (and trying to get the US navy to stop attacking the japs, so they could invade... )
And yes the ENG navy patrolling off Canada and intercepting the US navy on the east coast. Plus the CAN navy attacking off their own coasts...
So, looking at my files and trying to make sense of them, here is my advice: There is still no guarantee that it will work for you. The main problem with the AI is ensuring that your AI file is the single ai file running at that particular time. But you seem to have overcome that already?
So please look at what I am posting and choose the bits that are useful to you.
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My targets were much higher:
target = {
1795 = 9000
1812 = 6000
1809 = 6000
1960 = 8000
1963 = 8000
1371 = 1000
1367 = 100
}
So, 1795 was my main target.
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Just looking at the ITA ai at that time, for defending Italy and attacking Spain's navy:
invasion = {
invasion = yes
base = 0.1 #Relative modifier. (lower = specific targets much more important.)
random = 10.0 #How big a random range. (1.0 = 1%)
coastal = 0.1 #increase to avoid coastal forts more.
beach = 0.01 #higher, avoid worst beaches.
max_distance = 100.0 #About the distance from Japan to Batavia
max_staging_distance = 100.0 # How far should the staging area be from the target invasion point
distance = 0.01 #higher = avoid long distance.
pocket = 20.0 #prioritise pockets, ie provinces with no adjacent controlled by same.
island = 0.01 #prioritise taking pure islands.
enemy = 2.0 #higher = much more vary of troops in province.
adjacentenemy = 2.0 #higher = much more vary of troops nearby
air_base = 1.5
naval_base = 1.5
air_support = 3.0
redirect = priority
ignore = no
help_allies = yes #[yes/no]
Discussion:
Notice that distance is 0.01.
For the USA 1942 ai and for my ENG ai covering the US East Coast and the Med etc, the distance is:
distance = 1.0 #higher = avoid long distance.
For AST covering an invasion of China, the distance is:
distance = 10.0 #higher = avoid long distance.
So I would suggest setting your distance to 0.01.
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So this is my ITA.ai for that time, notice you need to tell AGAIN that they are at war. Just remove the .txt and ensure you save it as an ai file. And then call it by event etc etc.
I would suggest you use this flie and adjust for your own bases and target provinces etc etc. I hope it works!
