AI and Force Limits

[Farodin]

Hey everyone,

I got a little question about the AI, because in my current Sweden game I've noticed something odd:

Does the AI receive penalties for exceeding the FL? I'm asking because in said game I saw Commonwealth fielding a 115 Doomstack at a Forcelimit of 50, two-province-hansa fielding 50 stacks, GB exceeding their FL by 30 stacks, etc...

I know that AI is made to go over the FL, but I didn't know it was that much and it's making the game very hard as I - currently owning all of Scandinavia + LO and TO territories have a FL of 32 of which I can use 27 because of LA - can barely beat those stacks, even if I am 2 tech levels ahead in MilTech. And as far as the ledger is telling me, those nations aren't in debt. So that leaves two options as far as I'm concerned:
- AI doesn't receive penalties for massively exceeding their FL or
- they get HUGE bonuses to income (Hanse is embargoed by me and barely has any trade power anywhere for example, how do they finance 50 stacks?)

 

[Draecesstra]

hard to judge without "income ledger", in my games, some countries did something like that, but always hat the money for it. so prefering a bigger army over bigger money on the bank seems good. (maybe even AI bonus activated?)

 

[ChildeR]

Most likely they just have a lot more income than you due to better trade control (especially GB and Hansa) and/or richer territories. Look at their income in the ledger and how the income/FL ratio compares to yours. If you need help interpreting it, you could post some numbers here.

The AI likes to go very high over FL especially when at war and hiring mercs. That's often a good thing, but sometimes pushes them into a debt spiral if they lose a big war.

Ideas can also matter for army maintenance. Commonwealth gets both -20% cavalry cost and -20% regiment cost, while picking aristocratic for another -15% cavalry cost.

 

[kente]

for what i have seen, if the AI has the gold, go far over the FL (army or naval). In my currently game as Castille sharing 50% trade power with Portugal in Seville i make a gain of 130gold each months and i have 30 regiments over the army FL and 50 ships over the naval FL. And the AI Ottomans has 50 regiments over, the AI GB 80 ships over and they make quite good gain still.
You should probably rely more over your trade to make bigger army