Ok, i am playing the early start as Croatia and i am trying to unite the land, and no matter what i do the other guy has more troops then i do, to be clear there are two separate Croatian duchies, i tried to start a game with either one and no matter which one i choose the other guy always has more troops, what is going on?
Issue with troop counts
- Thread starter Samoja
- Start date
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Its because you must have low military stats, also, RNG.
Just go full military (use your Marshall), make good alliances via marriage, and there you have. I dont remember if the croats are pagans in that start, but convert to christianity asap, that way you can get better marriage deals.
Just go full military (use your Marshall), make good alliances via marriage, and there you have. I dont remember if the croats are pagans in that start, but convert to christianity asap, that way you can get better marriage deals.
They are, but my question is, how come the AI always has the upper hand straight off the bat, i am talking before the game is even unpaused, if i declare war on him before i even start he always fields ridiculously more troops then i can.
Some realms are just stronger than others by their size. Both number of counties and number of holdings. This isn't meant to be a balanced game.
Alliances, and defensive bonuses, as Serenity said, this its not a balanced game, you must play smarter and know the mechanics before declaring war. The AI will not have any advantage about you if you know your game, because the AI its simple.
Ok, let me try to be clear this time, there are two dukes, like duke A and duke B, ok, if i start as duke A and attack duke B duke B gets almost twice the soldiers, on the other hand if i start as duke B and attack duke a then Duke A gets almost twice the soldiers, it's the very start of the game, before either duke could possibly make alliances, and they are not allied troops either, they are levies, the game is obviously cheating, the occurrence is consistent over about half a dozen tries, in fact i tried to start the game as one duke and then immediately switch to the other duke and i was able to handily whip the firsty duke's butt until my duke died without heirs.
CK2 troops are those you can call upon depending on circumstances, not standing armies (expect for retinues).
Vassals provide more or less troops based on how much they like you, for example.
If you invade, the vassals of your target will generally provide more troops to defend the realm than they would to support a war of aggression; there also may be bonus troops added due to cultural/religious factors.
The target may also have bought mercenaries. This you can check, as their treasury will have dropped and the extra troops may show in the mousover summary of their numbers. Always be wary of attacking rich targets...
In addition to the points made by @mrinku, be aware that every ruler's stats and traits are randomised every time you start a new game. (There are a few exceptions that are hardcoded - but they are very few, and I don't think any of them are in Croatia.) If you have a lower military stat, you will start with fewer demesne troops. If the other duke has exactly the same holdings as you, but a higher military stat, he will start with more demesne troops than you. If his vassals like him a lot more than your vassals like you (eg. due to diplo stat and traits), he will get more troops from his vassals than you do from yours. All of this can lead to wide swings in overall troop count at the start of the game.
In other words, your experience might be due to new game RNG.
This is why many people (including myself) tend to pick a ruler and then restart the game with that ruler multiple times - until his randomly-generated stats are vaguely good. It's a bit sad, but those 5 minutes of boredom at the start of the game make the rest of the run a lot more enjoyable.
Most of the starting rulers have randomly generated stats. Both duchies probably have the same tech levels, etc., so any difference in troop levels is due to the Martial rating of the reigning duke. You've just been getting unlucky and getting a lower Martial rating than the opposing duke.
Others have already outlined it pretty well. I just want to add, If you send a high martial councilor to train troops in your capital province (even better if you sent war or hunt focus if you can), half the time, you will end up fielding a larger levy than a similar sized AI opponent, because AI (as far as I know) only rarely use this action (note it takes a while for the increased max levy size to fill up after you send your martial).
The AI in CK2 doesn't really 'cheat' when it comes to money, levy, manpower, etc on normal difficulty. Whatever advantage they have, you would also enjoy if in the same position. This will become more and more obvious as you learn more about the game mechanics. This isn't like total war or civilization where AI cheats with extra money or ignores the rules to compensate for its poor AI. If anything, AI in CK2 may actually be playing with a handicap, considering how they are locked out of picking certain decisions from a lot of events or simply made to pick decisions randomly instead of based on their circumstances. Th
Other's have mentioned all the points already. However, if you are still in doubt, you can just give us the names of the characters you tested and start dates you are trying, and we can take a look to see if it might be a bug.
I keep loving how ppl finally get destroyed by AI and complain.. its hilarious
Paradox has done a great job at this game with the AI honestly, specially since holy fury.. compared to everyother singleplayer like assasin creed where the AI stares at you not attacking waiting to die, this game is great.
Paradox has done a great job at this game with the AI honestly, specially since holy fury.. compared to everyother singleplayer like assasin creed where the AI stares at you not attacking waiting to die, this game is great.
Early start as Croatia? So then you are fighting a fellow Slavic.
Slavics have a method to raise additional troops by paying Piety. Always pay attention to enemy Peity and gold (mercs) before declaring on Slavic religion.
As with everything else, rulers get an opinion bonus with vassals when defending a war, and since vassals like their liege more they'll provide more troops than what he has pre-war dec.
Also your duchy may be inferior to his duchy. It's a thing. If you dislike this just play as the other duke. Same difference aside from dynasty.
Slavics have a method to raise additional troops by paying Piety. Always pay attention to enemy Peity and gold (mercs) before declaring on Slavic religion.
As with everything else, rulers get an opinion bonus with vassals when defending a war, and since vassals like their liege more they'll provide more troops than what he has pre-war dec.
Also your duchy may be inferior to his duchy. It's a thing. If you dislike this just play as the other duke. Same difference aside from dynasty.
That should be only against attackers from other religions.
To the Op what is your and your enemy MIL stat? Are you sure all the troops are levies? maybe they have used the Bulid Legend' action and got lucky. There are many possibilities but is hard to say without more info (For example how many troops are you talking about? one thing is 300 vs 500, another 1000 vs 2000.
every Matrial stat that is over 10 gives adional 5% troops ammount, and every martial stat that is below 10 gives -5% troops ammount. If normal ammount of troops is 1000 and you have 12 martial and enemy has 19 martial you get 1100 troops and enemy gets 1450 troops. Adional to this calculation will be important your wife and marshal martial stats that define your realm levys as enemy wife and marshal what defines they levys. If you have bad stat roll for yourself, your wife and counsilors, then you have disadvantage,
Only your personal Martial affects levy size. Your state Martial (yours with bonus from wife and Marshal) only increases the army's morale recovery rate) according to the Wiki.
well wiki might be true, but as marshal trains troops it will increase the size of levy acording to his stats.
To be fair, there's been a few times where I'm just absolutely stunned as to how many troops the enemy suddenly has sometimes (I'm an experienced player, I check for alliances, special troops from prestiage/piety, etc.) It would be nice to be able to click on a troop and see exactly what its source is, I suppose. Even after all this time I still find a few things I can learn. That will probably never change, with a game this complex.
Well. You can mouse over the characters troops and check for mercs, special event, levies and retinue
As the op seems to have no dlcs I assume he's fighting the defensive pagan event troops.
As the op seems to have no dlcs I assume he's fighting the defensive pagan event troops.