Question

**Frankie1** · October 05, 2007, 07:03 AM

First of all I would like to say thank you for such a great Mod, I love the new civs and all the different units, as well as the additional money constraints that make the game a little bit harder. I also prefer epic style games, so vanilla was a little too fast paced for me.

So now comes the question. I am currently playing my second game, and both times I have had this problem. The other countries have almost NO units around on the map. In this game I am playing as Scotland, and I am just running riot over everyone with almost NO resistance. I am used to winning games quite easily, but they are not even offering me some token resistance besides 3-4 units in every city? With Scotland on turn 300 I have the entire British Isles, Sicily, Italy, all of Denmark's and the northern rebels old territories, Antwerp, and Hamburg and a few cities stolen from the Reich. The only one to actually offer me some decent resistance was the Pope, and even that was only one battle

I understand the AI is not the greatest, and we work with what has been programmed by the games developers, but surely the other countries can afford to build a little more? As an example I had a 6 General's bodyguard stack on their way to a crusade. France got their before me, and I was stuck in Magyar territory with those units. Magyar's promptly declared war on me. With those 6 units, I took down Magyar's capital, and 3 of their other cities, no recruiting mercs or anything, and no losses. Please don't think I'm boasting, I would have been thrilled if they hit me with 3 full stacks and annihlated me, but they didn't, because they had no units.

Where are the full stack battles, or do I have to play till turn 600 to get them? If so this seems a little strange, because even new players should be able to turn out full top unit stacks by turn 200, I remember in RomeTW playing as Carthage and having to fight my way with Elephants through 6 full stacks of Legionarres. I don't expect the game to be able to beat a experienced human player, but couldn't they at least be able to churn out 100's of units to make life a little more difficult?

If it should be like this, am I doing something wrong and what can I edit/modify to make the computer much more powerful and able to support many more units? Thanks for your time

Financial Overview

Faction Ranking

France No Units??? The rest of the world is just like this except for a few Jihad's/Crusades

**Banjeeboy** · October 05, 2007, 08:03 AM

Are you playing on Hard or Very Hard?

**Frankie1** · October 05, 2007, 08:11 AM

Sorry I forgot to put that in, this was on VH/VH both times

**Phil Stanbridge** · October 05, 2007, 08:15 AM

What you need to consider here is the fact that this mod slows things down. It also slows the AI garrison building down considerably too. You do eventually get full (or nearly full) stacks of men attacking/defending but it can take several hundred years for this to happen. By 1300+ you should start to see larger battle groups. A lot of people dont make it this far in the game so I have been led to believe, which is why most people dont see this. It's a shame because the game opens up from here onwards, and is much much more of a challenge.

**Frankie1** · October 05, 2007, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by Phil Stanbridge

What you need to consider here is the fact that this mod slows things down. It also slows the AI garrison building down considerably too. You do eventually get full (or nearly full) stacks of men attacking/defending but it can take several hundred years for this to happen. By 1300+ you should start to see larger battle groups. A lot of people dont make it this far in the game so I have been led to believe, which is why most people dont see this. It's a shame because the game opens up from here onwards, and is much much more of a challenge.

But by that time I could control the entire map. I'm not even joking, I have held myself back on attacking big time this last game (house rule/never attack unless enemy declares war) I always play my games this way to try to make it a challenge, and give the AI as much chance to start pumping out elite units. But now I can build Templars, Hospitallers, Heavy Merc Axemen, Trebuchet's, and many other top units. The enemy cities are at a higher level than mine, whenever I take a new city they have some buildings I haven't got to yet. So why are their cities so advanced and their armies so lousy(equate that to non-existant)

**Phil Stanbridge** · October 05, 2007, 09:04 AM

Precisely! The problem is you are "blitzing". You are spreading yourself too thin too fast. The AI doesn't handle this tactic particularly well. Even if your provinces are only making the bare minium you'll still be raking it in and that isn't much fun. I am at 1230ish in my current campaign as the HRE and I only have the provinces I started out with plus a few others. I am concentrating everything I have on building these up first, before I wage war. If you focus on this tactic before taking over the entire map you'll have a much better game. In fact I'm not sure I'll last too long at this rate - Hungary have attacked me from two fronts and I am mostly unprepared!

**Irishmafia2020** · October 05, 2007, 09:27 AM

My suggestion would be to modify the "king's purse" for those factions that you do not control, and they will therfore have more money to spend on buying units and armies... You can find the "king's purse" values after each faction name in the desc_strat file. I've never had quite the problem you have, although I admit that the opposing militaries do seem a bit thin at times. Usually they can only afford 1 -2 stacks, and those are guarding their borders almost at random. It is easy to come in unnoticed and take several settlements before they respond. I am willing to bet that if you added 5000 per turn to all of your opposing factions via the king's purse, that they would eventually prove to be much hardier enemies.

**Frankie1** · October 05, 2007, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by Irishmafia2020

My suggestion would be to modify the "king's purse" for those factions that you do not control, and they will therfore have more money to spend on buying units and armies... You can find the "king's purse" values after each faction name in the desc_strat file. I've never had quite the problem you have, although I admit that the opposing militaries do seem a bit thin at times. Usually they can only afford 1 -2 stacks, and those are guarding their borders almost at random. It is easy to come in unnoticed and take several settlements before they respond. I am willing to bet that if you added 5000 per turn to all of your opposing factions via the king's purse, that they would eventually prove to be much hardier enemies.

That's a good idea thanks. I'm going to try adding 10,000, and see how I get on. While I was waiting for replies I installed Stainless Steel to give it a try, playing as Knights Templar, non stop battles. Wonderful

@phil

But my point was if I was blitzing I could easily have taken over all of Europe. I did build up for a very long time, not so long as you, but I was sure the computer should have been able to throw something a little more worrying at me.
I don't know how you could keep only original provinces so long, dont u go mad with boredom?

**Phil Stanbridge** · October 05, 2007, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Frankie1

@phil

But my point was if I was blitzing I could easily have taken over all of Europe. I did build up for a very long time, not so long as you, but I was sure the computer should have been able to throw something a little more worrying at me.
I don't know how you could keep only original provinces so long, dont u go mad with boredom?

I don't actually. I enjoy watching my little factions grow up. I must be very sad (or have waaay too much time on my hands).

**Smarmy** · October 05, 2007, 04:05 PM

This always seems to happen to the AI, they never really develop their economy as much as the player sees fit to. And almost always I'll see a high tier mercenary recruitment post. They focus more on being able to recruit such units, rather than being able to afford them. In my experience they stay well within their upkeep, and do focus on higher tier units. Though it usually plays out that they're "armies" will just be 3-4 units of the highest tier they can recruit and afford. You have to wait a long time for them to catch up to you with their economy, which some people have solved by increasing the starting economies of all cities.

'Upgrading' all cities on the map is a little bit too time intensive and complicated for the patience I can muster in an evening.

So I either just be immaculately patient with the AI, or up their king's purse...

Giving the campaign an economic boost however, would be a much better solution to this problem. Serving to make the campaign much more dynamic in the first hundred turns. Wouldn't be as painful to start a new one, either.

**Balbor** · October 12, 2007, 05:41 PM

i think the merc buildings need to be removed or made into proper guilds not regular building. The AI always waists money building them up, then recruiting from them. By 1250 almost every AI run settlement has a max level merc building, which means they have been waisting a lot of time and money. When I take over a settlement I just destroy them for 3666 cash.

**Aleks1991** · November 16, 2009, 02:43 AM

this guys is a military mad man.. try building up faction and getting merchants to make the big bucks for you

**Gray Beard** · November 24, 2009, 09:40 AM

Another way to possibly solve this problem would be to simply give the AI factions a few more units at the start of the game.

Option two: use auto resolve rather than fighting the battles yourself. The computer is still stupid and predicable. If your army isn't any smarter than the place you are attacking you won't win so often.

However, I don't seem to have this problem and I am probably a Blitz champion. As the Byzantines I start gathering forces from turn 1 and building more. As soon as I get everything from Athens and Corinth and Thessolinika up to Nicaea I attack it and take it. I then move down to Iconium. The Turks have at least a full stack waiting on me. If I don't get all the nobility in that attack I am in trouble.