Carthage, as with all large empires (Egypt, Seleucids) is completely inert and does not defend itself.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Hi gang, loving the new version -- and I know this is an old issue. But i'm playing Massalia and it's really striking. Rome at least seems to expand a bit and recruit lots of armies, but in my hundred or more games of DeI I have NEVER seen a Carthaginian army defend their holdings in Spain, let alone try to conquer something. Hell, I've never seen Carthage take a province besides Syracuse. In probably a thousand hours or more on here.

I know it's hardcoded, but would some kind of script be possible? "Carthago Nova is under attack -- the Liby Phoenicians are called to the colors and mercenaries flock to Spain!" like with Rome in Italy?

Egypt is the same. Just completely passive and rarely defends their Syrian holdings and never their Anatolian.

Seleucids do at least build one army at the beginning, usually near Antioch, and that's a fun fight. But beat that and they're done.

What can be done about this? It is, in my view, the only thing keeping DeI from absolute perfection. I love the mod to death, but most of the fun comes from fighting single province nations, who are the only ones who actually build armies.

EDIT: I would add that at turn 30, Rome has conquered Taras from Epirus and conquered Epirus itself -- and nothing else. Cisapline Gaul is still Gaulish. They have several full stacks just sitting outside Rome. Can anything be done to increase AI aggression?

[ayrond091]

increase difficulty maybe?

[alhoon]

I have never seen the CAI in any Total War game be able to defend large empires. It is less prominent in S2TW as is, because of the chokeholds and because there is simply not much room for AI factions to become too large, but it is there as well (if you see a clan with 20+ settlements, that's a clan that is ripe for the taking). At least in R2TW and further, the vassals actually attack. Which means that if faction A has 20 settlements and 2 3-settlement vassals, you will have to deal with 3 attackers, 2 of which will be defending small areas. Frankly, the ONLY way I think that in a total war game the Large Empires have some serious measure of defense is by script-spawning armies and forcing them to engage the player.

One way I can see to deal with the issue is to "lower" a bit the actual armies the AI has available and then script one army per controlled province that spawns and attacks the player - and then dissolves at the end of the turn. If an AI faction doesn't control a whole province then they don't get the army.
I.e. similar to the "garrison script" of M2TW but not for settlements.

increase difficulty maybe?

In my experience, this makes the AI tougher, not smarter. Sure, the guys defending the town are awesomely powerful and the CAI has large armies... elsewhere. In one R2TW campaign (not with DEI) I managed with some effort to change the faction I control mid-game. I.e. I dropped Bactria and assumed control of Massalia. At that game, Massalia was rather large (13-14 settlements) and at war with Rome and some other minor Gaul faction. Once I take control I see that Massalia had their armies gathered around a place in the middle of nowhere (not close to the capital, not close to the border with Rome, not close to any border). I had to use forced march to reach Marseiles before the Roman armies reached it! Because the AI had all the armies in the middle of nowhere.


I have not played 3Kingdoms yet, so I can't talk about that game, but even in Attila, you would see Roman Empires and Sassassanids being passive and happy to lose their provinces one at a time.

[ArcanisTOMNI]

By editing the Autoresolve Script, its possible to make sure that certain factions become big. I can remember, that one time I even had to cancel a campaign because I accidentely made carthage too strong (...they flooded my territory with 13 stacks, while I had around 4 to defend). I also change the imperium caps for armies so that big empires have more stacks available. I do think that it helps ai a bit, because some stacks always 'get lost'. These two things work well to help ai build big empires...however that doesnt mean they actually protect their borders. I witnessed ai rome build a strong and powerful empire covering italy, africa, parts of spain, egypt, greece, turkey and mesopotamia...but when it came to defend italy and their capital rome, from my invasion...they did just nothing. They never cared about sending one of their 24 stacks back to defend it...just as if they say 'who cares about italy, we got alle the rest'. I tested and after around 40 rounds I gave up because there was no challenge. When it comes to fight wars on two opposite borders hardcoded ai is lost.

[Black_Rider]

Try "Age of Hellenism" submod, it incrases chances of winning in autoresolve in this big empires, there are also more scripts that help them stay strong for the long period of campaign.

[Avarice1987]

Try "Age of Hellenism" submod, it incrases chances of winning in autoresolve in this big empires, there are also more scripts that help them stay strong for the long period of campaign.

Play on Difficult Campaign difficulty Here the Carthaginians in my Rome campaign have gathered about 4 FS on Sicily, 2 fleets and 2 FS in Spain and then struck off, I have also lost in the end, they had simply become too strong and even hesitated too long with the attack or bogged me down in northern Gaul.

[Kanan Azeri]

I play new campaign, my faction is Atropatkan, I'm neighbour to Seleucids in south, prefer to befriend with them for a while, around 80 Turn now, They lost Tarsos, Antiochea to Kilikia (One-city faction - from Tarsos, which were emerged with help of Koinon Galaton) then they managed to regain Antiochea, but lost it soon, also Ptolemaioi took Palmyra and Dura have risen own faction. So Seleucids loose one city after another but fighting back yet. Also I mention that AI attack and liberate enemy cities instead of just capturing them, only seen Parthia capturing all they can

[arsenal61095]

I notice something In my IA campaign as Octavian Rome. When i was preparing my armies for an invasion of the Parthian coastal Black Sea settlements, the main body of Parthian armies were further North on their conquest of Pontus, but one interesting thing is that 3 stacks of mixed Parthian vassals, namely Paradene,Drangiana, and Persia were positioned around the border settlement of Sinope, blocking my advance. Another 3 stacks of the same factions were blocking the next city,Amaseia. This is intriguing to me as it showed that there might have been a coordination between AI factions, where the master faction is on campaign with most of its armies, the vassals factions were tasked to defend the border settlements with a potential enemy (Rome), although said enemy hadn't declared war on Parthia yet. Although in the end these full stacks of armies just camped their until I wiped them out one by one, it is pretty interesting to me that they did that in the first place

[ArcanisTOMNI]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think I should edit my previous post. This is a screenshot from my current campaign as Sweboz(Germania) 400 turns in, on very hard difficulty. I edited the autoresolve script and the army limits to my liking, which resulted in this situation: Im quite powerful but have a hard time to keep my empire balanced. Rome is a juggernaut destroying anything, at war with everyone. Its worth to mention that rome are also at war with the third powerhouse: Seleucia, who are doing a great job unifying the greeks to conquer europe. While at war with Seleucia, Rome got jumped by all western factions from Tingis, to whole Iberia and the Celts in Gallia in what was almost a sudden and coordinated action. Of course thats not true, actually, it was more like a chain reaction but it was a surprising and interesting dynamic. Rome then had to fight two huge wars happening on every of their borders...but they did a impressive job of defending themself. Of course the autoresolve bonus helped a bit but I witnessed a very smart job from AI. Now they are on the attack, conquering the west.
Seleucids on the other hand used this situation to take greek from rome and then turned their focus on me. Now I have to fight the Seleucids (and their vassals) which is a true challenge. Ive been playing Rome2 with DEI for over 2500 hours, but this is a real challenge. Its quite hard to counter the Seleucid roster with a bunch of unarmored hillbillies. Furthermore I do know that, right now I might be on good terms with Rome...but in the end they are going to be my endboss.

So with a little bit of held AI can be in for a good playthrough.