Originally Posted by
Ivan_Moscavich
That's actually in direct opposition to what I've seen in my own tests.
For example giving the AI enough money to upgrade half of it's buildings as a treasury boost on turn 1, then a 4k income bonus per turn, Carthage, Rome, Seleucids, and Egypt began rapidly upgrading their entire empire worth of buildings, then spent money on as many 20 stacks as could be afforded.
That lead to expansion and better survival.
Once the money gets into the treasury, the ai was spending it regardless of whether it came from a scripted bonus or from the sustenance bonus.
It might not be able to figure out what to do with money added by a script the turn before it gets the money (it has no way of knowing it will be getting that money), but there is zero difference between that money, and money given by any other income means once it is actually in the treasury.
However my test work was based off a sub mod that used the sustenance method, so that method definitely works as well.
The main issue with the AI has always lay in the lack of empire building the ai does. Higher level buildings, and more of them, means better income and better defence against attack by other AI.
The bigger empires having many more structures to upgrade, while only working off a similar income as small factions lead to small factions being able to domino effect big factions because the small faction had less to focus on at first. All it takes is one faction to take a city, then take another and another and the big faction falls.
When the big empires have enough money to keep the entire empire upgraded, it lets them survive attacks from smaller factions on multiple fronts, then the natural economy takes over and the bigger amount of upgraded buildings provides sufficient income for even more empire building and more army stacks.
The initial income boost (4k in this example) is eventually overshadowed by the faction's own economy.