stat_stl only seems to be enforced for the player

[Shoebopp]

stat_stl determines the threshold below which a unit disappears after a battle due to having suffered too many casualties. For example, a unit of 64 soldiers might have a stat_stl of 8. Should after a brutal battle the unit have 7 men remaining, the unit will disappear from the campaign map.

The problem is that this behavior doesn't seem to be enforced for the AI, only for the player. I recently mass-replaced all stat_stl to be half of the unit size. This is to eliminate those annoying "zombie" units of 10% capacity in AI armies, which are not fun to fight against. However, this only applied for the player - I lost two cavalry units that barely dipped below 50% capacity after a battle, but the defeated AI managed to hold onto 7 different units at 10% to 30% capacity. Fighting them later will be annoying, but the point is, does this prove that stat_stl is player-only? Or are there certain conditions that must be fulfilled for it to be enforced for the AI? FWIW I also tried ransoming the defeated AI army, but the AI refused. Maybe that bypassed the stat_stl check for the AI survivors?

[Gigantus]

If you can repeat that test then I would think it's conclusive that it only applies to the player.

[firak]

I can confirm it is for player only, having done the same as the op. sadly, the ai never replenishes (or merges) depleted units, hence the zombie stacks it often fields.

However, since the player can do both, i still use a high value for keeping elite units alive, as it removes a potential game exploit for the player in that, for example, a highly experienced elite unit with, say, only 1 soldier remaining alive, can be replenished by the player right back to its original strength and experience when inside an appropriate player settlement, which seems to me a bit unrealistic.

combining a higher stat_stl value for elite units especially, together with a much slower pool replenishment rate for those units in the EDB, makes me far more cautious about fighting major battles, as even an heroic victory may turn out to be pyrrhic in its consequences.

well, that's my 30p worth of opinion, anyway. (still a shame about those zombie ai stacks, tho.)