ai has unlimited money?

[brapollo]

I just started playing this mod. It's gorgeous, the best looking units anywhere...

Anyways, what's up with the ai money script? As the kingdom of Jerusalem, I attacked Egypt and suddenly they had 150,000 in gold. After a few turns, they lost about half that but suddenly they jumped back up to 150,000 again. Is that a mistake or is that how things are scripted to protect the other factions from you in times of war?

[Ansar Warrior]

Curious, I'd like to know if this is the case as well?

How do you know how much the AI have by the way?

[brapollo]

It's a rough estimate. You can check out the graphs comparing faction stats every game like money and military strength. Click on your faction button and then click on the little graph symbol.

[Ansar Warrior]

It's a rough estimate. You can check out the graphs comparing faction stats every game like money and military strength. Click on your faction button and then click on the little graph symbol.

Oh yeah I know what you mean, I use it rarely, good idea though to keep an eye on your opponents cash flow.

It could be that they had a stack army then dismantled it but def worth checking it out in case it's a bug.
But then again 150K is a lot even for cancelling armies or construction?

[wudang_clown]

In which turn you've seen that?

[brapollo]

In which turn you've seen that?

It happened twice. The first time is the turn after I attacked, around turn 90. The money then rapidly depleted to around 80,000-90,000. Between turns 95 and 96, and bear in mind there was no major battle that took place or territories that changed hands, Egypt went from around 80,000-90,000 up to about 160,000 in a single turn. In fact, the graph at turn 96 totally changed from the graph on turn 95. On turn 95, the graph showed the initial spike, then a precipitous decline. On turn 96, the graph showed Egypt's money just going straight up (Egypt also used that money apparently to buy a bunch of troops that turn).

[wudang_clown]

I see. Well, that's only AI CASH script at work, nothing to worry about, a normal behaviour.

[brapollo]

I see. Well, that's only AI CASH script at work, nothing to worry about, a normal behaviour.

Okay so I finally checked out the cash script for BC. I can't see why anything in that would give the ai Egypt such tremendous cash bonuses as I have witnessed. Most of the cash bonus effect comes into effect, if I am reading things right, when the faction is weak and has very little money (which makes sense). I witnessed the AI get a 50,000+ cash boost in one turn when it had already a vast sum of money. Am I missing something?

[Ansar Warrior]

AI on steroids again scaring gamers lol.

[brapollo]

I just stopped playing TATW because on the current build, one of the factions is essentially broken and can build virtually unlimited numbers of troops. So I just like to check to make sure something is not either bugged or poorly constructed.

[Dago Red]

What about a gift from another AI faction in trade for something? (though that rarely happens here)
What difficulty are you playing on? The higher the difficulty setting, the more hidden bonuses granted to the AI and I was under the impression that's hard coded.

[k/t]

Not the money bonuses - those are all from scripts. Fred Putz's Carl script is the best solution for AI economy management. He's made it available for download, so you can adapt it to your mod. The money script in TATW 3.1 is really stupid, but apparently King Kong likes to fight the same battle 8000 times, and it's his mod. I already toned down the bonuses the AI received in BC 2.02, and when I finally download 2.3 or 3.0, you can be sure I will integrate Carl. Carl is like RR/RC - once you play with it, you never play without it again.

[Ansar Warrior]

Yeah when I attack the Ghaznavid cities (mainly the capital) they go from quarter full army to full stack in one turn of siege.

But I think that's part of the script.

[wudang_clown]

Am I missing something?

It's hard to say. Could you attach savegame in question, so I could analyze it directly?

Not the money bonuses - those are all from scripts.

I think there are some hardcoded money bonuses dependant on which difficulty level you choose. There certainly are small differences at the beginning of a campaign, and those may grow proportionally to the size of treasury later in game. I'm not 100% sure if my assumption is correct, though.

Yeah when I attack the Ghaznavid cities (mainly the capital) they go from quarter full army to full stack in one turn of siege.

But I think that's part of the script.

No, that's something completely different, that's the garrison script. And of starting Ghaznavid settlements, only Lahore and Multan are affected.

[brapollo]

Unfortunately I have already played through it. After the money spike, there was a precipitous crash and the Ayyubids basically went bankrupt. I conquered Egypt about 15 turns ago and that was that.

[Ansar Warrior]

Unfortunately I have already played through it. After the money spike, there was a precipitous crash and the Ayyubids basically went bankrupt. I conquered Egypt about 15 turns ago and that was that.

I just conquered the Paramout Rajputs and it was similar, they were bloody hard to take out and kept popping up with large armies but most of the difficulty was due to those damn elephants.

Anyway their gone now, nothing weird with their income though it was same as mine and after I wore them down they had trouble raising even a half army.

[reavertm]

While at this, does A.I. even know how to disband armies? I have NEVER seen it doing it.

I agree TATW 3.1 money script is ridiculous. I actually think ANY idea to "fix A.I. behaviour" with money scripts is just plain broken.

How about instead of lying to A.I. it has sufficient money to train troops with add money scripts - adjust starting income from taxes & trade in settlements (or unit maintenance cost otherwise) so that it can actually afford to field a standing army from turn 1 without going bankrupt? I think A.I. script even confuses A.I with wrong perceiving of its own wealth and progression. We certainly don't know whether A.I. analyses difference in income from turn to turn. And what if it does "hey, since the last turn I generated huge profit, I must be doing good, let's train some armies!"?

I have to say - I played vanilla M2TW (just once, granted, but long campaign) - and I never experienced money-caused balancing problem.

Now when I tried various great community mods (BC from 1.x to 2.x, TATW 2/3 and recently RTW ones: Roma Surrectum II, SPQR for RTW), I see modders trying to be (sorry to say this) "smarter" than CA and adding "challenge" to the player by granting money to A.I which often happens with balance dying after a few turns.

I mean, what is so terribly broken with vanilla economy management that it needs "fixing" so desperately?
If it's about challenge, recruitment and construction could be made a bit more expensive for human player than for A.I.

Apart from no point to play economy game on enemy - endless stacks coming out of nowhere (in M2TW it's at least limited with recruitment queue length, RSII default 0-turn game is pure stack-fest..) make the game quite boring and ironically unsatisfying experience ("I just beat an A.I. faction that cheats with anything it can, 20 more to go..") in longer run which is sad since community mods are awesome apart of this but any attempt to turtle the game is punished.

Same applies to BC. I think I need to turn my attention to BC submods in order to - when I start some BC campaign - finally forget why I lost interest last time...

[Sadreddine]

Seriously, just mod the AI cash scripts away or customize them. It's very easy to do.

[k/t]

Actually, the Carl script makes buildings cost 1 florin for the AI.

These two lines are added to the capability of every wall level:

construction_cost_bonus_stone bonus 100 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
construction_cost_bonus_wooden bonus 100 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1

I wonder if you couldn't use those lines but make it "bonus 75" or "bonus 50" or whatever you want. Then you could do a greater degree of customization.

Giving lots of money to the AI is pointless, since it will use it all on recruiting troops it doesn't need or which will create an endless spam that the player will come to the forums to complain about. The good thing about Carl is that it steers the AI's choices and takes away its ability to recruit if it goes bankrupt while still letting it develop its settlements, whereas a conventional money script just gives it more money which will be spent on more armies.

[wudang_clown]

We don't want to use scripts that are not team's work in BC, as we have our own ideas on how to solve this and that. If you desire to have that Carl's script in BC, then you can adapt it and maybe release as a submod for BC. I'm sure many would appreciate that.

I knew about construction_cost_bonus, but I've read somewhere (I think on totalwar.org) that it seems not to work, so I dropped further research. If it works, then that's very cool, but that doesn't solve AI recruitment issues. I agree that giving lots of money to AI is pointless, but in BC those are not only loads of money (2.3 those sums were lowered a bit) that later are source of stack spam, but also replenishment rates play their role. On the side note, it's pretty obvious AI does use its money to develop its settlements. I suppose that's why Carl decided to add construction_cost_bonus.

Anyway, we will be working on it systematically, starting with 2.4, and I hope we will eventually develop something acceptable.