Slash and Burn - Bankrupting the AI enemy

[Theban Warrior]

Hi there - I'm new to EB and this mod rocks (Besides a couple of CTD here and there but never mind)

Question: Im playing as the Hellenes(HK) Ptolomoi has declared war on me and they have big elite armies so I decided to send a fleet with a full stack army to Alexandria and go on a slash and burn through the Ptolemy empire capturing cities and destroying them and then moving onto the next. Now will this bankrupt the Ptolemy AI as it would do to me, if the AI did it to me? Will this cripple their economy/empire or is the AI unaffected?

I want to do this to Rome as well - and don't want to waste my time if it doesn't effect the economic policy of the AI

[Knonfoda]

I don't think it affects it economically as the game itself and the EB script always ensure the AI has just enough money not to go bankrupt.

However, what you will effectively do is throw them back by not allowing them to recruit good armies. What usually happens when you do this is that any other faction, Arche Seleukia in this case, which hasn't had their military industrial complex destroyed, destroys the faction which has, so here the Ptolemaics.

What you will see is Seleukia replacing the Ptolemies.

Raids such as these are almost a form of cheating, because the AI cannot do the same to you, but it screws them up big time. Best thing is to try and get peace with them, expand in another direction, and then tackle them when you are ready.

[Faramir D'Andunie]

. Best thing is to try and get peace with them, expand in another direction, and then tackle them when you are ready.

RTW AI is rather uncooperative when it comes to peace, even when they are facing destruction.

You are free to raid their as long as you don't overdo it, completely crippling them means they will soon be conquered by someone else (unless you actually corner them somewhere and make sure you will take any assault).

As much as one dislikes such raids sometimes they are needed to stop the endless stack spamming certain factions do, which can get quite annoying after a while.

[Knonfoda]

Sorry, I use Force Diplomacy as default, and forget a lot of others dont.

Its very useful to curb uncooperating AI, which defines the AI in RTW I think.

[Theban Warrior]

Very good points about realism - so far I did it to 5 cities but only after ruling them for 8 years - I found them to expensive to maintain due to unhappy citizens and was making a loss - so I decided to raise them to the ground and abonde them to the enemy or the eluetheroi. Thanks for feedback

[Alkibiadēs]

While I'm sure this depends on several factors, I've found that razing core cities of big, expanding factions to the ground can be a hard (or even crippling) blow to their economy. For example, when I see a Grey Death emerging in Asia, I usually sack Antioch and pillage some of their cities in the Levant and/or Anatolia as well. This results in a drastic drop of the overall quality of their armies.

But, as has already been mentioned, the EB script makes sure that even such a crippling blow will not result in a faction going bankrupt in the long run. Unless you cheat by using FD and force an enemy faction to become your protectorate, in which case the scripted money will go over to your coffers instead.