One thing I like about the patch, smaller armies

[Travis_Bickle]

The AI no longer builds massive armies early on, meaning two things.

Ridiculous sized wars no longer happen in 1480.

The AI goes into less ridiculous debt.

Very welcome improvement to the game.

 

[Sfan]

Wait, the AI was building too much armies? If anything, what tilted me is that they weren't building anywhere near FL, making game way too easy, especially the OPMs not building enough troops.

 

[Oporto]

Well, I dont know, I often saw Free cities raising up to 12 regiments...

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Wait, the AI was building too much armies? If anything, what tilted me is that they weren't building anywhere near FL, making game way too easy, especially the OPMs not building enough troops.

They would build massive armies early on that they couldn't afford, and wouldn't disband mercs which would cause the debt spiral.

I've just seen major nations like France, Austria and the Ottomans maintain smaller armies but build more when they need them.

 

[PrussicAcid]

Ridiculous sized wars no longer happen in 1480.

Except in NA.

 

[gigib]

The AI no longer builds massive armies early on, meaning two things.

Ridiculous sized wars no longer happen in 1480.

The AI goes into less ridiculous debt.

Very welcome improvement to the game.

That was changed with emperor, unfortunately. Ai nation only builds to FL when at war.
It s not a good thing, you can either easily conquest or easily die, when they build to FL and their combined strength doubles.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

I retract my statement. Come 1500 the armies go back to ridiculous whole country populations

 

[ImAdrian]

I haven't noticed a debt spiral issue in the latest patch of emperor (1.30.6) - to me at least it seems that it was resolved. I saw countries in debt but I was surprised to see that they paid it back quite quickly.

 

[merulaalba]

The AI no longer builds massive armies early on, meaning two things.

Ridiculous sized wars no longer happen in 1480.

The AI goes into less ridiculous debt.

Very welcome improvement to the game.

Kudos where kudos are due!

The problem here is that the DLC per se it is having some great stuff (and the patch too)

If only they waited a bit longer and tested the product... we could avoid all of this

 

[merulaalba]

I retract my statement. Come 1500 the armies go back to ridiculous whole country populations

shite

 

[Sfan]

What you mention regarding army size looks pre 1.30.

From my experience, 1.30 has had ridiculously low army size, even in VH, with OPMs at 50% of their FL being wiped day 1 of a war, majors pretty easy to break if you blitz their forts before they can rebuild, and AI ignoring rebels. The exact mechanic you describe looks exactly like 1.30 played out for me: countries at 50% of their FL, raising to 100% every time they get into a war, then disbanding mercs, then redoing it.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

It's just weird because in my Switzerland campaign started today on 1.31.1, I remember France having 20,000 men only, and building up to 32,000 before they declared war on England.

The Ottomans were down to 16,000, but built up to 40,000 before they invaded the Mamluks.

France now sits on 40k men, the Ottomans on 50k+ just before 1500 though.

One way or another, the AI is building its armies differently and it seems to be leading to less debt spiral (although France has been in a permanent amount of moderate debt all game).

I think it might have something to do with the AI disbanding mercs after using them.

 

[Sfan]

If that's the case, pretty sure that's terribly bad. This means small AI countries without strategic depth will be very easy to roll over, and large AI countries will rely on their forts, which they most likely still don't upgrade, so any war after 1700 will be absolutely trivial.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

If that's the case, pretty sure that's terribly bad. This means small AI countries without strategic depth will be very easy to roll over, and large AI countries will rely on their forts, which they most likely still don't upgrade, so any war after 1700 will be absolutely trivial.

This is very weird. Ottomans went from 16k to 140k within three decades.

Not sure what to make of it.