Balance and Money per turn (full stacks every turn)

[Blingerman]

I have read, I don´t remember why that the AI is receiving 15000 per turn. The fact is that, in my game as England VH/VH, the france AI is launching full stacks turn after turn. I would want to know if it is caused by the difficulty settings I am playing, or by the 15000 push AI is receiving. The problem is the game is a battle after battle turn against full stacks and a siege fest.
If it is caused by the 15000 where can I change it?
Thx a lot

[Jopo]

The AI is VERY aggressive at VH. I play on H just for that reason. The 15000 will effect the number and quality of the armies sent against you, but not how aggressive they are.

If your not too far along, lower the difficulty to H and "siege fest" will be reduced. Lusted recommended playing H/VH.

[Sir Robin]

I've run into this issue with my latest campaign as the Byz.

I am a slow player who likes to build up my economy and military slowly. This was a mistake with LTC 2.0 vs Venice. They are down to two provinces, Ragussa and Zagreb, but they Venetian Heavy Infantry stack making monsters. I moved in a bunch of priests, short LOS, and noticed they seemed to have a lot of stacks.

Got curious since I gathered three stacks and realized that Venice had five stacks! So I held off for a bit and they got up to eight stacks before I quit for the night.

I think its a good thing that the AI gets extra cash when they need it but I think this is a little too much.

Perhaps drop it so they only get the extra boost every few turns when they need it?

[jegui]

This is actually a good thread... it's very wierd that u find ur enemies very aggressive 'cause in my campaign VH/VH (denmark) I'm crossing HRE enemy territory with my armies and their 4/5 fully stacked armies just stop short of attacking me and I can conquer their citties freely :hmmm:

I wonder if AI aggressiveness is specific to each faction or maybe if there are certain conditions that AI requires to be aggressive :hmmm: maybe if everybody and the pope is at war/odds with one faction (HRE) they will be busy with other non HP turn moves. Is that the case with u guys? the nations that r aggressive are only at war with ur faction or r they fighting multiple wars???

[Froggie5]

You can adjust the amounts of the ai cash boost in the campaign_script file, although I am still unclear if this file is only read once, at the start of the campaign, like descr_strat (in other words, I don't know whether or not changes will apply to a current campaign).

I began a campaign with the default boost but disliked it for the reasons stated above (multiple full stacks despite ai having only one or two cities). I actually removed the boost entirely and so far I have been fairly happy with the results as I prefer a slow and methodical campaign. I may, however, put the boost back in (at 5000 perhaps) for the next campaign.

The trick here, IMO, is to balance between an easy steamroll and having to spend every last florin every turn to replenish city and castle garrisons that are under constant siege. I like it when my empire actually feels threatened, but I get frustrated if I spend 70-80-100 years simply defending against endless enemy armies. We need to find that middle ground.

[Skaven]

Perssonaly I've reduced the script to 5.000 instead of Lusted's 15.000 and I do find it a lot more balanced.

the nations that r aggressive are only at war with ur faction or r they fighting multiple wars???

They are fighting multiple wars but Gravitz said he'll probably be fixing that in his next version of Ultimate AI.
btw: they fight multiple wars cause they never make ceasefires

[Lusted]

Just to clear this up:

the ai factions get 15000 if their cash drops below a certain amount, they do not get it constantly, only when their finances are low to give them an extra boost. I will likely be dropping it to 10000 in 2.1.

[Uandwhosearmy]

But by reading the edited file one can see that the AI gets 15.000 as soon as their balance drops below 20.000 florins. To guarantee the AI a minimum positive balance of 15.000-20.000 florins is a bit steep I think.

I started a campaign as the portuguese and got absolutely slaughtered when fighting against France who churned out stack after stack of elite troops. It felt kind of hopeless.

I'm currently playing a campaign as the Russians and have modded the script to give the AI 5000 florins if their balance drops below 10.000 and it feels much more balanced I have to say. The basic idea of the money script is a great idea by the way.

[Lusted]

I made it that high due to the expense of some buildings now, as otherwise the ai just will not build them.

[Faust Gottes]

Yes. And neither will the player, who does not get the bonus.

I changed it to 2000 extra if the AI is below 500 Florians. It was just to stupid to face three full Portugese stacks when they only had Narvenne (sp) left...

I'm fighting the Byzantines, who have been at constant war with several factions but seem to have great units, and I barely am getting urban militia because I can't afford to upgrade and keep a standing army.

The whole money script just seemed too unbalanced to me. This way I hope the comp will get a little boost, making things tough, but it won't be so drastic as to ruin the game experience.

Still, thank you very much for all of your hard work. The mod has kept me playing the game. I would've gone back to CivIV without it

[Blingerman]

The problem I see is that AI spends what it has. If he has 20000 and it has lot of provinces it will spend the 15000 in troops and upgrades and the next turn they will have another 15000 to spend the same way. My game is a siege fest survival to keep Caen, wiping out full stack turn after turn. I will definetely change the script to 5000 or change the way AI spends money in troops vs buildings to balance things my game in VH/VH is a the battle after battle turn, nothing bad if you like a hard game but I would prefer a slow pace. I don´t want to change the settings to Normal or Hard because AI is dumber, and I want an intelligent AI but fighting fair.

[Lusted]

You can't change the way the ai spends its money.

[Tariq]

You can try what i did with Sicily, i sent assasins and spies to their centers( they don't have to be well trained ) and keep sabotaging their recruitment and public order buildings.

It will not stoped them fully but will slow them down quite a bit, plus will get them to deal with unrest.They will resort to buying mercenaries and big numbers and that will drain them completely.

Also , assasinate (try at least) their leaders with high piety.

Results will take time, but eventually their army will have very crapy income and even 15000 will not be sufficient enough to help them cover all expenses of maintenance.

I did that with Milan and really worked nice for me .They ended up fielding 1 (unit ) in Valencia, 3 in Algiers and 5 low lvl units in Genoa.At one point i didn't have anyting left to destroy except in City of Milan.

They did have 2 stacks(mostly mercenaries) in Milan, but that was it.

Needless to say they were gone by 1150, and HRE is next

[Turbo]

If you drop the money script or reduce it, the game balance is impacted for the AI. One of the reasons that in LTC the AI fields such balanced armies is that it has the money to do it and to maintain it.

Another reason for the figure Lusted came up with is the steep price for the buildings. This helps the AI build the higher level buildings as the AI tends to spend all its money every turn and it almost never saves.