Ally fleets don't move, help, or do anything

[GreaterGlory]

Is there any solution to this? After a dozen DLC's and updates, with everything from lovingly crafted visual tweaks to quality of life additions, there has been nothing to fix the fact that the ally joins a war, and then the fleets stop in whatever system they are in, and don't move until the conclusion of the war.

[Geoff]

I know of two major reasons why they do it. Either (1) they're disloyal vassals and they don't actually want to fight, so they won't get involved until they're attacked; and (2) they stop to bomb a planet forever and ever and ever and ever, and the only to get them moving that I know of is to drop ground troops on it for them. But I'm not up to date with the latest mechanics for ground troops or the latest round of changes to AI beyond noting that they didn't really seem to satisfy very many folks.

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Your allies may simply be too weak to do anything impactful. It's not uncommon for AI allies to create more problems than solve, for example, a member of your federation can provoke a Fallen Empire and drag everyone into a long stall war. There is no solution here other than not relying too much on AI help in military conflicts. The AI will always be as passive as a pile of goo unless it has an absolute economic advantage over the enemy.

[Oakshadow]

If you use the take point button on your fleet the AI will attempt to follow your fleet into battle. But only if there's a safe route to get there.
Also the AI will try to only fight so long as it thinks it can win. So if the AI loses enough battles it'll park its fleets within its empire and try to build them back up slowly. You can try sending them alloys and energy to help them rebuild faster. That might encourage them to rejoin the fight.

Generally speaking the best way to utilize allied AI is through the indirect methods allowed in diplomacy. For federations its using a portion of your allies' fleet capacity to build a federation fleet. For vassals it's the ability to directly borrow their fleets.... etc...
If you're relying on them to come to your aid on your own.... well.... lets just say the AI is designed to act selfishly 90% of the time. And keeping their own fleets fresh and unharmed while you squander yours is totally a valid strategy for them to get ahead.

[GreaterGlory]

Thanks for the advice and for letting me know I'm not the only one experiencing this.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by GreaterGlory:

Thanks for the advice and for letting me know I'm not the only one experiencing this.

Just another of many examples of the game being terribly broken.

[corisai]

Originally posted by pete3great:

Just another of many examples of the game being terribly broken.

That's actually pretty much realistic instead of broken. Vassals are not mind-controlled slaves and don't want to die in sovereign wars.

Should I remind about Poland fate in WW2? Their allies just betrayed them.

[Bermag]

It works fine for me. I usually run around with a doom stack of my fleets and my allies/vassals. Need to set "take point" on your own fleets.

[RubiiX]

Originally posted by Geoff:

I know of two major reasons why they do it. Either (1) they're disloyal vassals and they don't actually want to fight, so they won't get involved until they're attacked; and (2) they stop to bomb a planet forever and ever and ever and ever, and the only to get them moving that I know of is to drop ground troops on it for them. But I'm not up to date with the latest mechanics for ground troops or the latest round of changes to AI beyond noting that they didn't really seem to satisfy very many folks.

The second one is the issue. Allied fleets will follow other allied fleets and spend the next 50 in game years bombing a planet before moving on. This is prevalent during a crisis like the scourge, where they get completely destroyed because their entire military fleet is trying to destroy a single infested planet, but only one of the fleets is actually bombing it and it's usually the weakest one set in selective bombardment stance. Meanwhile, the scourge just spreads it's fleets out and attacks all the undefended systems/worlds.

I will never understand why the AI is so willing to leave it's systems and worlds completely undefended. They really need to sort the AI out in this game. AI should always prioritise defence of it's own systems over that of it's allies.

Also, borrowing fleets to someone should NOT effect their naval capacity. It's not their fleet, while are they paying the upkeep for it? This is usually how I would send aid to an AI if I cannot micro manage every single battle going on and I have a spare fleet I don't mind losing in the grand scheme of things.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by corisai:

That's actually pretty much realistic instead of broken. Vassals are not mind-controlled slaves and don't want to die in sovereign wars.

Should I remind about Poland fate in WW2? Their allies just betrayed them.

1. Realism isn't fun.
2. What is it about Paradox fans and WW2? JFC, stop with comparing everything to WW2. Other stuff happened in history, and also, this is a science fiction game, not HOI4. Have some imagination.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by RubiiX:

I will never understand why the AI is so willing to leave it's systems and worlds completely undefended. They really need to sort the AI out in this game. AI should always prioritise defence of it's own systems over that of it's allies.

Yes, it should and it does not. I try to keep my fleets set to "discourage" taking point so that they'll make some effort to defend their own territory. If you set it to "encourage" everything they have will follow you, which is fine if you're in a doomstack war, but otherwise means they get eaten while you're achieving whatever the war goal is. They're still not great at their own defense, but at least they're no less idiotic than their also-AI opponents.

I generally try to solve it with a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy of warfare. It's too easy to steamroll the AI, so I try to just play marginally less stupid than they do. If you want to try winning a war with both hands tied behind your back, let your AI allies take point with all your fleets save one (set your fleets to follow them instead of the other way around). You get messier wars but more dynamic maps.

In my current game, my faction are supposed to be the Regents for an AI-controlled Galactic Empire, so we keep the Federation Fleet moored in their capital system and only bring it out to defend the capital from advancing invaders or to battle Fallen Empires. They've done a surprisingly good job at snowballing despite being the junior partner in my federation and now dominate half the galactic disc.

[UltraEarth]

Ai is useless, usually to make the AI fleets move you have to make one of your fleets to "encourage allied fleets to follow" to make them move and follow that fleet, other time they just keep bombarding to oblivion a colony of 10 pops while the ocuppied enemy system with his capital not invaded is literally one system away but no, they prefer to bombard a useless colony.

[RubiiX]

Originally posted by UltraEarth:

Ai is useless, usually to make the AI fleets move you have to make one of your fleets to "encourage allied fleets to follow" to make them move and follow that fleet, other time they just keep bombarding to oblivion a colony of 10 pops while the ocuppied enemy system with his capital not invaded is literally one system away but no, they prefer to bombard a useless colony.

They should program the AI to stop following allied fleets that are bombing planets if there is no more bombing capacity. As far as I am aware, they limited the amount of ship capacity that can bomb a planet previously, so AI fleets should move on or pick a new fleet to follow if this is the case. It's actually outrageous that the entire galactic fleet is over one worthless planet during a crisis situation while the crisis goes about ravaging the entire galaxy because nothing is being defended.

And like I said before, AI should prioritise defence of it's own systems that are under attack over anything else.

[UltraEarth]

Originally posted by RubiiX:

Originally posted by UltraEarth:

Ai is useless, usually to make the AI fleets move you have to make one of your fleets to "encourage allied fleets to follow" to make them move and follow that fleet, other time they just keep bombarding to oblivion a colony of 10 pops while the ocuppied enemy system with his capital not invaded is literally one system away but no, they prefer to bombard a useless colony.

They should program the AI to stop following allied fleets that are bombing planets if there is no more bombing capacity. As far as I am aware, they limited the amount of ship capacity that can bomb a planet previously, so AI fleets should move on or pick a new fleet to follow if this is the case. It's actually outrageous that the entire galactic fleet is over one worthless planet during a crisis situation while the crisis goes about ravaging the entire galaxy because nothing is being defended.

And like I said before, AI should prioritise defence of it's own systems that are under attack over anything else.

Its been a long time since these problems and Paradox has done nothing about it, the limit about ships bombarding a planet doesn't fix anything, AI fleets stay still on systems without doing anything, they also do the spam of weird ship combinations of 39285345 different designs that change 1 thing every design effectively wasting resources, they don't fix the AI, for my part i have to use MODS that change AI behaviour to at least be a challenge.