Cao clan's seemingly infinite armies

[The Computer Illiterate]

I'm wondering how does the cao clan always become so powerful, I don't know how to take screenshots but they probably have over 30 full stacks running around not to mention city garrisons and smaller armies. I've checked the charts and they're bankrupt right now but (and have been for a very long time), despite going to war with the Yuan clan, their armies don't seem to deplete in the slightest and they seem to be able to spawn more armies despite their bankruptcy. I'm not sure what's going on, no other faction has done this.

I know they have the two vassals (the ones that start with Hunai and Nay-something, can't remember their names), which they had for a long time, and have other allies other than me.

What I'm asking is, what is going on?

[Tan Zhi Han]

Are they bankrupt, or in deficit? If they are bankrupt (near 0 wealth) then the Cao clan has maximum utilization of wealth. They get a good set of starting armies and generals (oh boy, the generals). They also start with good developed cities and usually take Luoyang first. From a realism standpoint, that is exactly how the Cao clan succeeded in their unification of China. They had the 'heartland' of China which meant the most populous and productive regions, allowing for more troops, troops, and armor. Though the Shu and Wu houses repeatedly campaigned into Wei (the Cao clan), Wei always had many times their numbers in reserve.

EDIT: Also, the specified AI in the descr_strat has a good bit to do with it too.

[The Computer Illiterate]

I can't tell whether they're completely bankrupt or not. Looking at their financial chart, they are at rock bottom though. What does their AI do?

[Tan Zhi Han]

I'm not at home to look at the desc_strat... But... Each faction is given 2 AI characters; one handles economic strategy and the other handles military strategy. Here are the summarized details pulled from someone else's post:

They represent different types of AI behaviors based on what types of units and buildings the faction prioritizes. The first name denotes building priorities and the second denotes troop priorities. Here's a list of the different behaviors and what they mean:


Buildings:
balanced - no preferences
religious - prioritizes religion
trader - prioritizes mercantile
comfort - prioritizes entertainment
bureaucrat - prioritizes public order
craftsman - prioritizes weapon/armor upgrades
sailor - prioritizes sea trade/navy
fortified - prioritizes walls and defense


Units:
smith - no preferences
mao - builds mass inf/light inf
genghis - builds cav archers/light cav
stalin - builds heavy and mass inf, and artillery
napoleon - builds light/heavy inf and light cav
henry - builds heavy/light cav and missile inf
caesar - builds heavy inf, light cav, and artillery

[Tan Zhi Han]

Just an update, Cao Cao starts with trader/genghis. This means that the Cao Clan doesn't focus on enhancing their income in their building strategy. Also, this means that the Cao Clan focuses on missile/light cav.


Also, pulled more detailed explanation from TW Heaven:

These control a set of AI production personalities, which contribute a bias towards building and training (but not retraining or repairing). This bias is fairly small compared to game-generated factors such as "the enemy is attacking me with lots of cavalry, build me some spearmen". Explaining the weighting system which drives the production AI in full is beyond the scope of this document as it would take several days to write.


So in short, the building construction personalities are these: (ranked highest to lowest)


Balanced - biases towards growth, taxable income, trade level bonuses (roads), walls and xp bonus buildings
Religious - biases towards growth, loyalty, taxable income, farming, walls and law
Trader - biases towards growth, trade level, trade base, weapon upgrades, games, races and xp bonus buildings
Comfort - biases towards growth, farming, games, races, xp bonus and happiness
Bureaucrat - biases towards taxable income, growth, pop health, trade, walls, improved bodyguards and law
Craftsman - biases towards walls, races, taxable income, weapon upgrades, xp bonuses, mines, health and growth
Sailor - biases towards sea trade, taxable income, walls, growth, trade
Fortified - biases towards walls, taxable income, growth, loyalty, defenses, bodyguards and law



These biases are towards building properties, rather than buildings themselves. The game does not know what a "Blacksmith" is, for example, it only knows that it is a building which provides a weapon upgrade, and hence a Craftsman AI would be more likely to build it than another AI personality type.


These are then combined with a troop production personality, as follows:


Smith - exactly level
Mao - biased towards mass troops, light infantry
Genghis - biased towards missile cavalry and light cavalry
Stalin - biased towards heavy infantry, mass troops and artillery
Napoleon - biased towards a mix of light and heavy infantry, light cavalry
Henry - biased towards heavy and light cavalry, missile infantry
Caesar - biased towards heavy infantry, light cavalry, siege artillery


The same system as for the buildings applies. Troop category and class are combined at the time the unit database is loaded to give a unit production type, and the likelihood of the AI choosing to produce a given unit type which can be produced is then modified by the unit type weighting. There is also a random element in the choosing of which building or troop type to produce next, so the effect of the bias is a statistical thing. Another factor that is applied over the top which may obscure the bias is a tendency towards producing troop mixtures (according to what is already in the garrison) and a weighting according to unit strength.

[Gongsunzan]

cao cao always spams troops. I had a campaign as cao cao and was able to do the same as the AI almost. I never was at a shortage of money and had multiple stacks attacking 3 different fronts not to mention bribing stacks out of existence almost every turn. But as Cao cao I was allied to yuan shao and he was spamming stacks just like cao cao would if he was AI. He was fighting both gongsun factions and the black bandits.

edit:also I have the largest army as Cao Cao so I think his economy is just that godly.

[Rockrocks]

hey guys I don't know if you have the English version but I'm from China and I have the Chinese version of RotK.

The Original Roman mod along with this mod is heavily tilted in computer's favor. Which I find disgusting, here's what they do, they will spawn armies at set intervals and spawn buildings. AI controlled three kingdom faction (Liu, Cao and Sun) get an enormous army right after start. Also they have economic protection in that they are given 10000 a month if they are running a deficit.

To see the extent of the modding, go to campaignscript.txt the lines are pretty straitforward so just delete those event if you feel like I feel.

[Gongsunzan]

This mod doesnt spawn armies im pretty sure. Not that i have seen anyways

[Seether]

Gongsunzan is correct, this mod does not spawn armies or buildings for the AI, nor does it give the major factions enormous armies from the start. The AI does receive extra money, but that is only because the AI is horrible at managing money in M2TW and needs help to compete with a player. Although this mod is based on the original RTW mod, that is where the similarities end.