Large stack problem

[Nick_Since_1985]

Here's yust a sugestion, when looking at other people their screenshots it looks to me the number of full stacks later on in the game is yust ridiculous. Maybe if you set the revolt risk in city's very high the computer will be forced to garrison them with a full stack not only will you solve the problem of massive stacks but you will also solve the problem with exploding nations such as Macedon going north and such, two problems solved...

Tell me if I'am wrong...

[Nellup]

Most of the screenshots are taken while using 0-turn recruitment, if you feel there are too many stacks then use 1-turn recruitment. There are instructions on how to do this on one of the stickied threads.

[Caius Antonius]

I've put this in the "Post Empires" thread as well. And I'm using 1 turn recruitment, year is 592 auc.

[Nellup]

Damn, that's bad for one turn - although it is pretty late in the game.

[Brusilov]

I've put this in the "Post Empires" thread as well. And I'm using 1 turn recruitment, year is 592 auc.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It would have been nice to have seen the state of the map along with this screen shot.

Have the Ptolemaics been at war with anyone? Usually, if they have the armies won't be this large.

I play with 1 turn recruitment with the Alex exe and I've not seen that many stacks before.

Damn, that's bad for one turn - although it is pretty late in the game.

I've only ever seen three full stacks with the campaigns that I play.

[Ian Altano]

Brusilov is right, when a faction is at war with 1 or more enemies, their armies will never reach such splendure: I had a similar egyptian superpower in a recent campaign, but then the Seleucids (another superpower) starting moving in, and within 30 turns, Egypt was nothing more than 2.5 stacks in all.

[Kubelwagen]

Yeah, it's really only during the first few turns of war that those stacks do anything. And you should have a similar number of armies anyway.... The first few years againsts the Germans, I faced stack after stack. But now, they're all defeated and a full stack is rare.

[torzsoktamas]

Here's yust a sugestion, when looking at other people their screenshots it looks to me the number of full stacks later on in the game is yust ridiculous. Maybe if you set the revolt risk in city's very high the computer will be forced to garrison them with a full stack not only will you solve the problem of massive stacks but you will also solve the problem with exploding nations such as Macedon going north and such, two problems solved...

Tell me if I'am wrong...

It would be a stupid thing to set the revolt risk in citys very high.I hate when i have a large empire and i want to conquer more citys and a have to reconquere my own citys because of the many revoults.I think it would be more realistic and more fun to play making the revolt risk low.

[Caius Antonius]

Here's the progress



Rome is not at war with the Ptolemaic Empire yet. The Bosphorans have been squashed by both of them, eventually leading to border each other. Carthage will be gone soon as well.

And it seems that they're still recruiting stacks after stacks.

[cherryfunk]

One thing to consider is that a 'full stack' is often not actually a full stack -- because the unit stats are so different from vanilla, the game engine will often display a half-stack or less as a 'full strength' army...

[Astaroth]

I wonder why everyone has to face such massive stack armies in their campaigns tbh.

I'm in the year 530 A.U.C. now or so and Gaul, being one of the most dominant countries around my area, had at the most like 12 stacks close to my lands, while I myself have around 10 ONLY in that region - 2-3 of them are old troops/mercs, one stack is pure cav and the others are individual legions+auxilias.

Its really no biggie to decimate the AI, last turn I eleminated 4 stacks losing around one stack of completely TRASH units myself. =)

Btw has it ever happened to someone that the free people conquered Pergamum? lol its hilarious, because P. sent all of its armies to conquer islands like Rhodes and Chalcis (or sth) the free people sent an army and took mainland Pergamum hahahaahah

[dvk901]

I don't think I've ever seen a mod yet where....if you played a very long time, you didn't end up with a lot of stacks of armies when factions were not at war with each other. I have notcied in my own tests that the AI has a rather 'slow' reaction time to the diplomatic situation it's in. For example, you attack a faction that is not at war with anyone, and see that they have very few armies. If you blitz them and overrun them right away...they are a pushover. But time and again I have seen that if you wait a few turns, they will start to 'ramp up' their military in furious fashion....and you'll have their armies coming our of your ears.

In like fashion, I have observed that this 'furious army building' takes a while to stop once that faction is at peace. Could be the 'diplomacy' part of the game isn't talking clearly to the 'create vast armies' part.

Also, a faction could well be totally BROKE and still have these armies. YOU, as the player couldn't do that....for one thing you'd be bored. Turn after turn with no money would be tiresome. But the AI can have 500 armies in the field, be totally broke, and it doesn't care. It just leaves damaged buildings damaged, doesn't build anything, and just waits with no mind to be bored with.

You say, 'making the revolt risk very high would solve this'. Sorry...it would solve nothing. The AI gets bonuses the player does not, and one of them is that the likelihood of revolt in their cities is EXTREMELY LOW. By that I mean, you would have to create a situation where a town or city had a lot of people, no governor or garrison to speak of, and no health or happiness buildings. This is the reason that the region just below Parthia's starting position (which Seleucid owns) revolts after a few turns in almost every campaign. It's a 'planned revolt', so to speak. But to make a city revolt during the campaign for the AI...ANYTHING you did would have a FAR larger impact on the player than it would on the AI. So you probably could make AI cities revolt.......but YOU wouldn't even be able to hold a city for one turn!!

If you think about it, this makes sense from a 'game' point of view. CA didn't want a situation where it could be possible for the whole map to revolt to the slaves because you changed a setting or two. What fun would that be? Just ask yourself why the game starts with so many 'Family Members', and keeps creating new ones at a pretty good pace? Again, if they all get killed, the whole faction goes over to the Slave faction. So there are things we have to 'live with' that are built into this game.

Personally, I think NO faction should ever be at peace....in a 'game' sense. Sure, that's not historical, but I do believe it would prevent this 'excess buildup' of armies....because they would keep getting killed off in a war.

Some people look at all those armies and say 'this is ridiculous'.....whether it's 1 turn, 0 turn or whatever. But that is only your opinion. I personally see those armies as the challenge I will have to face if I go to war with that Nation.

Furthermore, let's just consider the screen shots themselves...overall. The AI tends to 'bunch' armies around important cities (their capitols, etc). In my test campaign of RS1.5, I noticed, by the time I got over to the east, that Parthia and Pergamon had conquered most of the area, and between them, they must've had 80-100 armies over there. I'm thinking, holy crap! But bear in mind...they're all 'bunched' in a couple palces. Look at your OWN armies. Players don't do that. You have them all over protecting various choke points, passes, critical areas. I counted my own armies and realized that I had FAR MORE than they did, if you considered garrisons (which the AI doesn't need as much to keep cities happy), Auxilia armies in forts, Legions in the field....heck, there was no comparison. I took 8 Legions over there, a bunch of reinforcements, and squashed them all.

I would much prefer this situation to my getting over there in the east and finding that there were two very large Empires over there with ....two armies apiece to protect themselves. Oh my...the challenge! What shall I do!

[Nick_Since_1985]

Ok, I understand, but couldn't we yust make the free people in the north much stronger? Look a the last map posted, Ptolemies in Russia, Rome in the Baltic, I thought this problem was solved allready? Or does the maker of that screenshot uses an older version of RS...?

[Caius Antonius]

Ok, I understand, but couldn't we yust make the free people in the north much stronger? Look a the last map posted, Ptolemies in Russia, Rome in the Baltic, I thought this problem was solved allready? Or does the maker of that screenshot uses an older version of RS...?

I'm using the latest version of RS, with the alexander.exe engine. So far, in my campaigns the ptolemaic empire seems to overrun the other easter factions pretty fast.

[century x]

This is random. THe land block where egypt and carthage borcer each other was removed. Didn't even notice.

[MarcusTullius]

This is random. THe land block where egypt and carthage borcer each other was removed. Didn't even notice.

I didnt think the land block had been removed....maybe Egypt moved across by sea?

[dvk901]

If you'll note...he's over 100 years into his campaign. There's no way anyone could control anything that far into a campaign without 'dictating' thru scripts how things should be. It's just inevitable that one or two factions will win out over others in any given area....the best one can hope for is that it isn't ALWAYS the same factions.

[Nick_Since_1985]

If you'll note...he's over 100 years into his campaign. There's no way anyone could control anything that far into a campaign without 'dictating' thru scripts how things should be. It's just inevitable that one or two factions will win out over others in any given area....the best one can hope for is that it isn't ALWAYS the same factions.

Wouldn't it be possible to put emerging factions in? Factions that where destroyed, but since your empire got so big they re-emerge...

[spanish_emperor]

wow!!

btw who are you, pergamum??

[Caius Antonius]

Dacia