How to help weak AI factions ?

[Xerrop]

When i want to hold a buffer state between me and a strong AI faction, how can i help him to stay alive ?

I´m giving them huge amounts of money for example - does this have any effect ?
Has the AI also an economy like my own faction or have they additional bonus incomes (or even endless money to spend) ?

What is when i´m blocking the ports of my enemys - do they generate less income ?

[Lord Dakier]

Make an alliance with them then give them money and military access so you can send soldiers to help them out.

[pokejunkie11]

Make an alliance with them then give them money and military access so you can send soldiers to help them out.

I have never understood the point of military access, what does it do anyway?

just send 2-3 full stacks and attack anything that moves in the enemy territory

[Xavier Dragnesi]

1. You giving the AI money has effect, but not a lot. From my experienced, the AI spends more time building than training in most cases, so it will usually spend most of what you give on buildings, and then some on troop recruitment.

2. Whether the AI gets a bonus income depends on what difficulty level you are playing at. If you play at hard, I think it's 3000 extra per turn, and on very hard, it is 5000 extra per turn. But remember this applies not only to your buffer AI faction, but also every other AI faction in the game.

3. If you block enemy ports, then yes you do minimise some of the enemy income depending where the port is. If it's a busy port where lots of little ships with their dotten lines are going in and out, then it'll make a larger difference to the enemy's income. However, if you block up a port that only has one trade ship going in and out, then blockading it is rather useless.

[Xerrop]

1. You giving the AI money has effect, but not a lot. From my experienced, the AI spends more time building than training in most cases, so it will usually spend most of what you give on buildings, and then some on troop recruitment.

That´s bad - so i have to send my own troops (instead of tons of money) to the illyrian front, while I´m fighting a huge and strong enemy in the east.

Thanks to all for your answers

[Lord Dakier]

Ohhh so thats how port blocking worked... even I didnt know that.

Just give the AI faction some money and send a task force to distract the enemy. Your ally wont attack you cause your fighting his enemy and also his village is probably quite far from yours.

[Scutarii]

There's basically two ways to help an AI faction:
1) Money. The easiest way.
2) Military assistance. This could mean taking a stack and sacking a bunch of their enemies territory, or simply blockading all of their enemies ports, to slow them down.

[aznflea]

OR you can edit their troop selection to make them pwoerful

[Lord Dakier]

Oh Yeah that will be fun when you have to kill them later on.

[Xerrop]

Oh Yeah that will be fun when you have to kill them later on.

good point

[shootie]

easy cheat lol

press ` on your keyboard on type into the romeshell. for example if i was Macedon and wanted to keep Thrace alive to hold out Scythia i would type. add_money Thrace, 40000

buts thats cheatin tho our you could use force_diplomacy mod to make them accept your offers (e.g: pay them x amount of money for map info etc.)

[Scutarii]

It makes them not pissed off at you if you send troops into their territory. Buggy if anything. It just stops the 'Transgression' message, IIRC, doesn't actually help all that much.

[Mediteran]

is there a transgression message in rtw? i can't remember ever getting one:hmmm:

[Scutarii]

If you travel in a neutral factions territory, sometimes you'll get it... Not much, as I said, its quite buggy, most of the time they'll just attack you instead.

[Selifator]

Can be good for Romans, if a faction is allied to the Senate then you'll get a lesser rep with the old guys if you don't have military permission.

[SonOfAlexander]

I did this once with the Numidians, and at the end it was just me and them... easy. I gave them about 50k denarii and a 2k tribute every turn and bribed all enemy armies approaching them... but then they attacked me... 5 turns later they were dead.

[Lord Dakier]

Yeah I gave Armenia 50k came back about 40 turns later they wiped out the Seleucids with the Greeks and took 70% of Parthian territory. Armenia need plenty of money due to there small settlements.