The AI should have a financial advisor

**Silent Assassin** · November 26, 2009, 08:43 AM

What a mean by that is there almost always bankrupt and they seem to only spend money on military.

I have taken a city in my Dale campaign from Rhun, they had that city for at least 20 turns and when I took it alot of things were not repaired what they've broken. In my experience with TATW all AI concentrates on military and not really on developping they're own lands for me IMO it's not right, they should equally spend they're money to try and have better troops in the long run.

Anyone else is feeling the same way?

**Muffer Nl** · November 26, 2009, 09:19 AM

They already get massive amounts of money through scripts.

**Silent Assassin** · November 26, 2009, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by Muffer Nl

They already get massive amounts of money through scripts.

I know that but they don't know how to use it, they use their money only on military and almost nothing in the devlopement of their lands

**Jean=A=Luc** · November 26, 2009, 09:54 AM

Well military is all that a player really cares about, so that the AI provides a decent challenge. The only issue is that you have to invest a lot in those cities once you capture them.

Whether the players should get developed or non-developed cities from the AI is pretty much open to debate. One might argue that AI not developing its cities actually increases the challenge rating for the player.

**Silent Assassin** · November 26, 2009, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Jean=A=Luc

Well military is all that a player really cares about, so that the AI provides a decent challenge. The only issue is that you have to invest a lot in those cities once you capture them.

Whether the players should get developed or non-developed cities from the AI is pretty much open to debate. One might argue that AI not developing its cities actually increases the challenge rating for the player.

I agree to an extent but I've seen the AI bring early units in battle instead of having good late era ones because they can't upgrade fast enough their cities. So depeing on how you see it, this cuold be a knife that as two edges.

The other thing is that I'm not a modder so is there a way to actually make the AI build and recruit more equally?

**Aragorn** · November 26, 2009, 11:31 AM

I agree I would also like to know how if atall it is possible to make the AI spend more equally.

**Hermes Trismegistos** · November 26, 2009, 03:13 PM

I never had the feeling that the AI player's core provinces were underdeveloped, but the "never repair anything"-attitude is really annoying.

**trueblaze** · November 27, 2009, 01:10 AM

The extra cash so the AI doesn't go bankrupt isn't a bad thing, but when they spend it all on units it becomes a huge pain. I mean, being attacked by a full stack of elf units with two other full stacks right behind it is just plain cheating when I can barely field a half stack of elf units with the same cities/devepment that the comp has before I start going bankrupt.

**Silent Assassin** · December 02, 2009, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by Hermes Trismegistos

I never had the feeling that the AI player's core provinces were underdeveloped, but the "never repair anything"-attitude is really annoying.

That is also true they don't repair but by not reparing they can't improve the city so that IMO it's stupid

Originally Posted by trueblaze

The extra cash so the AI doesn't go bankrupt isn't a bad thing, but when they spend it all on units it becomes a huge pain. I mean, being attacked by a full stack of elf units with two other full stacks right behind it is just plain cheating when I can barely field a half stack of elf units with the same cities/devepment that the comp has before I start going bankrupt.

Well that is exactly my point also, By being attack turn after turn, by being siege:

1- You lose money so that is less for you to actually try to build your own one stack to try to pushe them back by taking their regions but with only one stack you can almost only take one region at the time and then, you get immediatly attacked by another full stack on the city you just captured and often you can't even recruit in that city because of the culture issue.

IMO I think the game needs a bit more balance, I don't have any problems seeing my enemies building stacks but not as much as it is set now, they should also balance the way the AI spends their money

**TheBromgrev** · December 02, 2009, 05:26 PM

I think the problem is due to the game engine itself. I recall Germanicu5 saying in SS's RR/RC thread that the AI is programmed to spend as much money as it can on military units without going bankrupt due to maintenance. Only after recruiting everything it can does it focus on settlements. The exception is income from the King's Purse, which goes directly into constructing buildings (if the AI can afford it). Since the money scripts give the AI a boost using "normal cash", the AI will use the scripted boost to recruit units.

If the above is true, instead of giving the AI money using the add_money console command, if we want the AI to seriously focus more on construction then the best way is to increase the King's Purse and lowering the money added by the console command.

However, my info comes from a script modder, and since I'm no expert on the game engine, I'm going to take his word for it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

**trueblaze** · December 02, 2009, 06:51 PM

Maybe if they lower the scripting a bit and raise the AI's King's Purse it would balance out then.

**Mega Tortas de Bodemloze** · December 03, 2009, 03:21 AM

Re: The AI should have a financial advisor

Could it also have anything to do with difficulty level.?..

I play on M/M since I basically concentrate on the campaign map/storyline and am not looking for lots and lots of fighting each turn...I find at M/M the AI does a decent job of developing. Oh ..ya...I also Turtle alot so that may also figure into it...

**MAMO72** · December 03, 2009, 07:07 AM

I think the main issue is due to the original game. I have playied (only VH/VH) a lot of times to the original Med2, with the K expansion, with SS and the matter is always the same: most of the enemy factions went bankrupt in the early stages of the campaign, only few exeptions occured. I agree with those who blame the annoying battles after battles every turn against full stacks of enemies. I don't know if the RR/RC give some more accuracy to that problem here, I'm not a modder and I always playied the vanilla TATW. Although much more financial balance is needed.

**Silent Assassin** · December 03, 2009, 08:46 AM

Well it would be fun to have the modders of this great Mod reply here in this thread, Maybe King Kong or someone else could answer this question.

**MAMO72** · January 29, 2010, 04:52 AM

Any news about that? as mentioned by Rebel6666 it would be nice if one of the mod's developper will answer to that issue here telling us about possibilities to increase the AI's economy level. I'm currently playing with 1.4 patch (wow really amazing) at the VH/VH level and all, I repeat, ALL factions went bankrupt starting from turn 50 or around there, both evil and good; come on guys, how this is possible? full stacks and no money?

**Baron Samedi** · January 29, 2010, 05:52 AM

Originally Posted by MAMO72

Any news about that? as mentioned by Rebel6666 it would be nice if one of the mod's developper will answer to that issue here telling us about possibilities to increase the AI's economy level. I'm currently playing with 1.4 patch (wow really amazing) at the VH/VH level and all, I repeat, ALL factions went bankrupt starting from turn 50 or around there, both evil and good; come on guys, how this is possible? full stacks and no money?

There is no such thing as to A.I. can go broke; their treasury will never fall below -500, so its totally a myth.

**Germanicu5** · January 29, 2010, 06:09 AM

Originally Posted by Baron Samedi

There is no such thing as to A.I. can go broke; their treasury will never fall below -500, so its totally a myth.

Nope, their treasury won't fall below -500 on faction turn start given AI is in debt that doesn't exceed 10500, which may be too late to give any effect to ongoing turn (bacause settlement turn starts before faction). During my SS tests AI was capable of creating up to -50k per turn (extreme occurence for mongols), but in TATW most units are free upkeep, so this wouldn't happen to such extent.

Regards

**Baron Samedi** · January 29, 2010, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by Germanicu5

Nope, their treasury won't fall below -500 on faction turn start given AI is in debt that doesn't exceed 10500, which may be too late to give any effect to ongoing turn (bacause settlement turn starts before faction). During my SS tests AI was capable of creating up to -50k per turn (extreme occurence for mongols), but in TATW most units are free upkeep, so this wouldn't happen to such extent.

Regards

Hmmm could you explain me where you got the number 10500 from or is this something hardcoded? You made me very curious...

Edit: I think I understand it now. Once the loss in a turn is greater than this amount than after this point the A.I. won't be compensated enough if it manages to loses this amount following each turn.

**Louis Lux** · January 29, 2010, 05:43 AM

From my experience playing against Rhun is that they develop their core cities really well, and there is where their main forces come from. And that's not really that bad, instead of repairing/developing recently conquered settlements they focus on having their big cities even more developed. I never really felt that they were fielding largely inferior troupes compared to mine, actually to the contrary because I like to retrain my units and keep highly experienced early units, and my constant slaughtering of their armies means that they will stop recruiting early units.

**Michael X** · January 29, 2010, 06:34 AM

Well, every AI city I have taken has always been as much developped as possible and personally, I like to destroy every building that there is in there to get some quick money to invest in the war - anyway it will take quite some time before one can use a former AI city due to culture anyway.

That has been my tactic for defeating Rohan (with Isengard on VH/VH). Since Rohan's armies are many more than I could have, I prepare small armies, infiltrate settlements with spies, open the gates, reduce the settlement to rubble, and then abandon it. You get money, you distract the enemy, and then they spend money on buildings instead of spending money on units. And it works quite well.