How to get AI to put units in reserve?

[tandur]

So, I am a new player, been watching videos, reading forum posts, reading the manual, etc. to try and better understand the game. I've played a few games, usually smaller nations, to understand various mechanics, but I'm coming across one issue I can not resolve.

My issue is, how do I get my Minister of Defense to place all of my active units back into reserve. I know how to manually order the units into reserve. This came about because I was experimenting with letting the AI fully control my military, and figured out how to get the AI to pull units out of reserve using initiative controls in the MoD panel. I understand that if initiative is set to None, they AI will do nothing. I've tried setting the MoD's priority to reduce unit readiness, but, tbh, this seems to do nothing.

For example, I'm playing as Spain. At the start, no units are deployed. I set my Naval initiative to Full, and after 30 minutes on full speed and afking, 13 ships are deployed and 32 are not. (Why not all of them, I have no idea). I then put on Decrease Unit Readiness, and nothing happens for 30 minutes on full speed and afking. I have ships in the Northern Europe theater, even though I set Military Priority to "None" in that theater. (Again, why? No clue). This begs the questions about Battle Zones/Theaters. Do I have to set every battlezone and theater in the entire world to None to prevent my units from randomly wandering into those areas? Does that actually do anything?

So far, I'm very impressed with the game and I'm certainly looking towards better understanding the game. I

[sulley]

Re the 13 ships being deployed and not the rest, I'm not entirely certain that the logic behind decisions made by the AI is capable of being fully understood in all scenarios and I expect there is a degree of randomness. That said, there could be a few factors at play here.

The AI may be making a commercial decision by not deploying all ships, if you (I) do not have the resources to support a full deployment (ie petrol, or military goods) or (ii) there may be causes beli/general diplomatic consequences to a full deployment in the region, or (iii) that full deployment of your navy may conflict with some other command you have given the AI in terms of minister priorities, rules of engagement, unit readiness, etc. I think you'll need to test this, and eventually you may stumble on the answer, but I remain sceptical that there is a hard and fast rule. When using AI, I wouldn't ever recommending resting on one's laurels and deferring to it completely - there is almost always a degree of oversight required by you.

Were the ships in Northern Europe deployed there by the AI, or were they lingering there already, for whatever reason? Odd indeed that there should be a deployment to a zero military priority area. Generally, battle zones/theatres work well, especially at war time. Try recalling those ships and see what the AI does with it afterwards.