Quote Originally Posted by [b
Quote[/b] (Brutal DLX @ Jan. 27 2004,17:02)]The real issue is that the AI does not seem to disband older troops/depleted ones when better ones are available. Their only means of troop reduction is warring. Naturally, this affects smaller factions more than larger ones, a change of starting money will not do much about that. It should be adressed for RTW by the CA devs.
Yes that is a major problem, that and the AI doesn't know how to save money, it will build something every turn it can afford it. If it has an income of 300 FL it will build 2 Spearmen instead of building nothing this turn and then building the boat it needs to complete its trade network next turn (or Feudal Knights or ...), which virtually ensures that it will never get enough money to build that boat, which means it will never have enough money again and so on.

Playing with VI I added the -ian extension to the shortcut and at the beginning of each game I go through each faction and assign governor titles and an initial province build order. This at least stops the Governor of Constantinople going to the 0 Acumen, 2* Varangian Guard and other such inanities. It also means that at least some of the provinces get some decent tech and hopefully some decent troops. The command star titles had to be assigned or they would be assigned to the highest generals, not highest acumen. Any left over titles would be assigned by the AI as soon as a 4 acumen unit became available.

Later, before I started playing MedMod, I would go through at every GA scoring period and reorganise their armies, disband Peasants, Combine units, retrain Princes etc. I remember once that I disbanded 138 units of Peasants from the Byzantines saving them 5100 FL in upkeep. They amassed this in 25 years. More typical was around 50 and getting less later in the game as their provinces teched up and their fleets expanded earning more money.

The faction that needs reorganising the most is the Mongols. After a few years their stacks are a mess of small units and they can become ineffective armies despite still being the most numerous overall.