When I fight on my ship deck the companions/sidekicks who are not in my party act dumb as hell.

I play in turn based mode. some examples: Konstaten summons skeletons directly next to him while he stands far away from enemies. They disappear before reaching an enemy and they block each others path while trying to walk down the stairs. Meanwhile Takehu throws harmful spells at my party (melee enemies stand close to my melee chars) and Ydwin uses only her weapon and never a spell.

Do companions follow my AI setting when they are not part of my party and does it matter if it is turn based or rtwp? So far I have not created my own AI settings because I play turn based and I select all actions of all party members myself.

I read somewhere that the companions which are not in the party use the stock AI during deck battles. It seems this is correct, because I have seen them doing things which I haven't scripted them to do. I play RTwP.

yeah, stock AI is dumb as hell in general. this doesn't just go for party members in ship-combat, but all AI, mostly caster AI. you probably notice it more for your own companions in ship-to-ship combat more because your builds aren't as optimized for bad AI.

 

example: very nearly every enemy mage that has Torrent of Flame in their grimoire will happily use it even if there's no one in range or only enemies on their side in range. i'm pretty sure stock caster AI just goes down a checklist of all spells they have and casts them.