Bribing away inferior troops: does it work?

[Marquis of Roland]

I am trying a new experiment.

I am going to bribe away all AI stacks that I deem unworthy of fighting (any kinds of peasant and militia hordes), to see if the AI will build better troops as they improve their buildings.

Its a shame you can't bribe individual units.

If anyone else has tried this, any feedback is appreciated. If anyone wants to try this, we'll have more data to see if it really works I guess.....

[Horatius]

The bribe goes to the individual captain, not to the enemy faction. They get nothing from the bribe except for the loss of their units.

[pezhetairoi]

So it ain't gonna work, because what a faction builds depends on its character as given in descr_strat. So if Germania and Spain in your game are 'mao' rather than 'caesar' or 'napoleon', then they will keep churning out Iberians/Spear Warbands at you no matter how much you bribe. Edit the descr_strat to comfortable napoleon (or genghis if you're doing parthia and scythia) if you want truly worthy troops trained from the upper tiers with temples that give experience and weapon upgrades.

[Marquis of Roland]

So it ain't gonna work, because what a faction builds depends on its character as given in descr_strat. So if Germania and Spain in your game are 'mao' rather than 'caesar' or 'napoleon', then they will keep churning out Iberians/Spear Warbands at you no matter how much you bribe. Edit the descr_strat to comfortable napoleon (or genghis if you're doing parthia and scythia) if you want truly worthy troops trained from the upper tiers with temples that give experience and weapon upgrades.

interesting......so how do I go about changing that? What is mao/caesar/napoleon/ghengis thing you're talking about?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

He means the historical quality of troops. For example:
Mao Tse-tung had (correct me if I'm wrong) little time and resources to raise a good strong, army, so he went with hordes of peasants.
Napolean, Ceasar, and the Great Khan raised at least some quality troops in their armies.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

I think he wanted to know how to change the descr_strat to get the desired affect. I would like to know to ~:confused:
I am sick of miltia hopolites and iberians

[antisocialmunky]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45212

Another quote from Ludas Magna.

[CMcMahon]

I don't waste time bribing them away; I find that snding small groups of soldiers out to kick ass on (numerically) superior groups of peasants gives me a lot of "Man of the Hour" generals.

[Marquis of Roland]

I think he wanted to know how to change the descr_strat to get the desired affect. I would like to know to ~:confused:
I am sick of miltia hopolites and iberians

Yeah that was what I was trying to get at......good idea mcmahon I'm gonna do that.

So its a txt file? I just go in there and type in changes and thats it?

[pezhetairoi]

Yeah, well, look at the Ludus Magna link provided in post #7. Thanks munky, I'd been looking for that one... been reading it before but can't remember where I found it.

[IceTorque]

I found that the AI when it can afford to will recruit the strongest units.
e.g. Give archers weaker stats and the AI will recruit less archers.
Regardless of character settings in descr_strat.

[Marquis of Roland]

Great links, these have been very helpful. I am going to start changing the settings tonight.

Going to change Greece to sailor stalin. That should be interesting, since they have no missile troops, artillery should make their now mass phalanx formations a lot more effective.

Also definitely going to get rid of all mao.

[Horatius]

Egypt always recruits the best troops it can get.

[pezhetairoi]

Which is sad since their best unit is probably bowmen for the amount of tecnological advances needed, and weight of fire.

[edyzmedieval]

I would never bribe inferior troops only if I am on shortage of troops.....

[pezhetairoi]

...warmonger :-) I bribe as an integral component of strategy. As Sun Tzu said, the best general is the one who can win without fighting a battle. Your objective on RTW, remember, is to conquer, not to fight. Of course, fighting is if you are bloodthirsty and want to have a heck of a goodtime riding down the fleeing enemy, but if you want to test your speed and strategical acumen, bribing is an important supplement to your armed force.

[Kourutsu]

Depends what Faction you are bribing.