AI mecenary armies

[TZER]

Hey folks,

getting so tired of having to fight off AI's that have massive mercenary armies without their country going to shite, I can't possibly see how they can afford hiring 30k doomstacks of mercenaries at the start of the game without going bankrupt or something. Don't suppose there are any mods out there that change this?

To be honest it's killing this game for me now, just stackwiped 3 of Englands armies (around 30k total) and they just landed with another 30k about 2 months later (with 30k manpower left in their reserve), so evidently they just keep hiring more mercenaries. Are there no bloody mechanics to prevent the AI from abusing the crap out of mercs? I mean there seems to be no end to them.


Cheers.

 

[whiteeagle81]

Yes, as I was fighting the Ottomans with Russia it was the same. The War was without end i beat um armies of them, they had 0 Soldiers. But the had 70 Mercenary Troops. So it was a war without end...

 

[TZER]

Yeah, just did another wipe of their armies, showed up another month or so later with another 37k consisting entirely of mercenaries (and still had 30k manpower in their reserve). Something is seriously wrong in this patch. They should not be able to afford this.. sigh, guess I'm done until they fix this.

 

[Chaingun]

I think it's more a question of game balancing than AI, AI does nothing that the player can't do in this case.

 

[TZER]

I think it's more a question of game balancing than AI, AI does nothing that the player can't do in this case.

Well considering they're just repeating the same thing over and over without end (stackwiped them 4 times so far), it does suggest there's no limit to the amount of mercenaries they can recruit even if their money hits zero? I find it hard to believe the AI has an economy at this stage of the game (pre 1500) to possibly support 30k+ mercenaries without some pretty massive penalties for going bankrupt?

I was also under the impression that mercenaries abandon if the empire they fight for goes into the negatives, or does this not apply to the AI?

 

[Chaingun]

It's really just a matter of saving up enough money to spam mercs ad-infinitum (well, what seems like it) in this case. Not saying it's perfect from a game balance perspective, it would be more interesting if some other limit prevented it. AI does it because a human would always defeat it using this tactic otherwise.

 

[Choatic Neutral]

No, no, the AI does have to pay.

They'll bankrupt their country doing it because they're stupid.