How To Beef Up Rebels?

[mogami]

Hi, It is the starting army's size. This is laying siege to Ebora on turn 3 without building any new units



The upkeep is a little more then 3k per turn. They start with 8k. If they siege in turn 3 they can storm on turn 4. Don't know how much you get for sacking town but they can move on to next one. The point is that the size of starting armies is why factions launch early conquests not the size of garrisons. Full stack versus full stack the attacker can sit and starve you.
You'll slow down early attacks more by reducing starting armies. Very few factions can actually afford their starting army. You must decide on turn 1 whether to attack or disband. I don't think the AI considers disbanding as an option. Also I don't think the AI can actually go into hole money wise. They can buy new units every turn and never pay upkeep.