Endless stacks of troops, computer cheating?

[Red Harvest]

It is one of the flaws fo the RTW recruiting system. You can't build units fast enough as the Egyptians to keep population down. In smaller cities you can't build armies without depleting the population. It doesn't make sense for dispersed cultures (barbarians, Numidians, Spanish etc.) while it does for ones like the Greeks, and Romans. You sort of need separate city and province approaches: cities for determining what structures and capabilities; provinces for determing what population/resource pools are available. A large developed city would not have a massive rural population, while a small barbarian city would have a large pool of people in the countryside in small villages.

Lords of the Realm II actually had a better population recruiting system. In it population would not only grow (and was tracked by age groups) but it would migrate based on happiness. Happiness and population was used when recruiting armies, and it took time to recover happiness after building a large army. In fact happiness limited how many you were allowed to recruit.

[Kourutsu]

I've found that Spain also mass produces soldiers. Naked fanatics and Round Sheild cavalry. Though they are not a major threat, a general with a full flag marching to Massilla(SP) is very hostile gesture.

[professorspatula]

I've found that Spain also mass produces soldiers. Naked fanatics and Round Sheild cavalry. Though they are not a major threat, a general with a full flag marching to Massilla(SP) is very hostile gesture.

That's true, in my Julii campaign I started after installing the 1.5 patch, I ended up in a bit of a pickle, with Spanish hordes sneaking up on my frontier settlements just at the very wrong moment when my finances and forces were stretched to the limits. How disappointed I was therefore, when the Spanish armies consisted of virtually all Iberian Infantry/Skirmishers and one or two units of Round shield cavalry and Naked Fanatics (and the occasional general). In 4-5 similar battles, I have killed somewhere in the region of 8500 of these weak troops for the loss of no more than 300 of my own, and many of those were just barbarian mercenaries. It's bitterly disappointing how easily they die when my Hastati and cavalry charge into their lines. It's more disappointing that the rate they recruit their troops means their settlements are stuck at the low population levels, hence it's unlikely they'll produce better troops before I finally tire of playing with these fools and slaughter the rest of them. This is the old age problem of playing on larger unit settings though (I play at Extra Large/120 unit size).

[AntiochusIII]

I believe the A.I. sometimes is capable of creating some stacks out of the sky, though. Despite Egypt's explosive population growth, there are still no more than six (usually, if you, a Seleucid player, rush, it will be three) cities (therefore, usually, six units) with which they can recruit within a turn. But I've faced full stacks of units in a few turns even after I dealt defeats after defeats at them. That, or the A.I. can sometimes recruit more than one unit per city per turn.