What Happened to the Romans?

[Unintended BM]

On my Sweboz game I had a while ago, I had a similar experience, kind of. All of Italy was basically unoccupied, but I built a spy and sent him to Sicily, and the Romans had like 3 huge armies. I was overconfident, and my army got destroyed, but I boosted my economy by completely destroying everything in Italy. The general who died in Italy, his son came of age in Capua before it rebelled, and I hired a full army of mercenaries and continued my pillaging.

Carthage likes to do that too. They often leave Africa completely unguarded and just have a huge army in Iberia, doing nothing.

[-42-]

I have been stuck fIghting stacks of pedites and trarii in both my Casse and Carthage campaigns, I'm just glad Roman cavalry is terrible.

[Drewski]

I have a mini theory (and that's all it is)..

If you notice, the ai will move it's capital around as if it meant nothing. I was playing a Baktria game with FOW off, just so I could actually see everything that was going on in the West. Rome moved North, West, East and South, and looked like an unstoppable Juggernaut. They had taken All of Italy, most of Gaul (all the way up to the English Channel), East across almost to Hungary.

Carthage held on in Lilybaum, and suddenly started turning first Sicily, and then Southern Italy white. And while this was going on, I noticed that the Roman capital was now Viennos. They didn't seem to care that their Italian homelands were being rampaged. Then Rome was finally carted out of Italy, and of course with no "real" factional troops left, the Getai and Sweboz started to pick away at their provinces too.

It was the complete empathy, that the ai Rome seemed to show about Carthage rampaging through Italy that bemused me. And it's not the first time I've seen this.

So the mini theory, is maybe there is some hidden weighting somewhere, that causes the ai to give more value to defending the territory around it's capital, even when it's capital is somewhere completely unimportant, because it's moved it around.

Just an out there theory ;)

[Dyabedes of Aphrodisias]

I have a mini theory (and that's all it is)..

If you notice, the ai will move it's capital around as if it meant nothing. I was playing a Baktria game with FOW off, just so I could actually see everything that was going on in the West. Rome moved North, West, East and South, and looked like an unstoppable Juggernaut. They had taken All of Italy, most of Gaul (all the way up to the English Channel), East across almost to Hungary.

Carthage held on in Lilybaum, and suddenly started turning first Sicily, and then Southern Italy white. And while this was going on, I noticed that the Roman capital was now Viennos. They didn't seem to care that their Italian homelands were being rampaged. Then Rome was finally carted out of Italy, and of course with no "real" factional troops left, the Getai and Sweboz started to pick away at their provinces too.

It was the complete empathy, that the ai Rome seemed to show about Carthage rampaging through Italy that bemused me. And it's not the first time I've seen this.

So the mini theory, is maybe there is some hidden weighting somewhere, that causes the ai to give more value to defending the territory around it's capital, even when it's capital is somewhere completely unimportant, because it's moved it around.

Just an out there theory ;)

Doesn't sound too out there to me. It makes sense that the AI would be programmed to be savvy to distance-to-capitol penalties, and makes sense also that they would leave undefended cities that have no unrest, regardless of military threats.

[Cute Wolf]

To counter these threat, we should let some factions had good factional troops available everywhere, so when they switch their capital, they still get a considerably good army... but... the AOR

[Sdragon]

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

[Rahwana]

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

So should we remove the damaging barracks script for the SPQR?

[Fluvius Camillus]

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

If that is true we have a serious problem which should be removed in EBII.

~Fluvius

[Subotan]

There wouldn't be any troops in Italy, because it would be assumed that as Italy is snuggled away nice and safe away from nasty foreigners, and that soldiers are on the borders. Evidently, they got the last bit wrong.

[Dyabedes of Aphrodisias]

If that is true we have a serious problem which should be removed in EBII.

~Fluvius

That would be quite a serious problem. But in my experience that isn't the case. When I took Roma I damaged the walls. That was a number of turns ago, and they still haven't fixed them. I believe I also remember that their barracks were damaged when I got there, but I'm not sure. If so, then this problem wouldn't be the case. I'll take Bononia for the Hell of it and report what I find when I get there.