Ridiculous AI recruting.

[gornoviceanu]

Is it just me or does the AI (I'm playing on normal / normal) have a significant recruitment bonus? I just recently defeated a 2 stack army and decide to camp 1 turn so I don't spend the winter in enemy territory and replenish some of my men. So I wait 1 turn, and then enter the enemy's territory (Petrodava, a settlement without walls) and I find an almost full stack army! Note that it was that faction's only province so no edicts or insane bonuses. Also, it was not a merc army.

So, is it just my imagination and they had a 3rd army hidden or did they just recruit 15+ units in 1 turn? If I'm right about this then is there some way to disable this bonus? I find it frustrating and it makes victories, even decisive ones feel useless. There is no strategic advantage because the AI can just field the army back so fast.. I don't want to imagine what a bigger empire can do.

If I can't turn this off, then can a friendly mod pro please, please release a submod? Or just tell me how to do it myself if it's possible.

[JObadiah]

On normal, I believe, AI factions get +1 recruitment slot per province. They also get a slight tech research boost so they may well have researched the tech that gives bonus recruitment slots.

It sounds like they probably had a backup army waiting around though. Unless they hired a ton of mercs?

[rjacko10]

Yep, sounds like they had 2.5 stacks at one point.

I find this a bit crazy too.

[Tundra98]

hmmmmm, ok since it wasnt a merc army i can give an explanation (i think). you know, one when i played pontus i had Sardes as a satrap, it was a 1 province state, but when they rebeled on me and i attacked them, they showed up with 3 armies at my doorstep. BUT heres the catch, those armies were PURELY composed of militia hoplites and the general, nothing more, needless to say i stomped them with my professional armies. What im trying to say is that it may be quantity over quality, if they were on petrodava, the most probable factions to be there are Saka Rauka or the Getae, in the first case, this would explain it as nomads tend to do these armies full of cheap horse archers IF they are underdeveloped in the other case, well, it may as well be cheap troop armies. are you sure this wasnt that?

[Tundra98]

I find it frustrating and it makes victories, even decisive ones feel useless. There is no strategic advantage because the AI can just field the army back so fast.. I don't want to imagine what a bigger empire can do.

Believe me, decisive victories are not useless, even more when you manage to capture a city after wards. If that city is millitary heavy, you will notice that they will not bring their stacks as fast, because their inmediate military power on that province just got taken out. Furthermore, the armies the AI field afterwards are cheaper than the originals, by this i mean, if one had mostly leukespides, the one that it recruited after you cap the province will be mostly normal pikemen and so on.

Oh and to put in context big empires, while playing as pontus i declared war on the selucids (which had control from Tarsus to alexandria, going deep into arabia and the east until baktria)........every little town bordering their empire got sieged by an army 3 turns after that (i just had the whole of asia minor) with armies composed of royal peltasts, leukespides and elephants. I had to quicksave and about 10 turns after i had to reload my saves, the war was lost xD

[Nochyan]

am also playing on normal and I find AI recruitment a bit 'shady'

[pyccos]

don't forget about mercenary's the ai recruits them like crazy in my experience, but ya the ai has recruited 3-6 units in a turn with a small settlement.

[Diadochiwelike]

In my experience the enemy recruites 2x as fast as the player does. I actually like this since most battles are way to easy even at Very Hard battle difficulty.
I can understand that it gets annoying or anything else negative for others, alhought I think it shoudnt be changed.
Maybe it is something you can mod yourself, you should try and find out.

Oh, and don't forget that the enemy recruits allot of mercs when they are in need of some quick power regain.

Good luck.

[Dresden]

This has come up many times. The AI gets a recruitment bonus based on difficulty level.