I have a problem with AI bodyguards. :\

[pezhetairoi]

I've found it rather annoying when I'm playing that my bodyguard units are always smaller than the enemy's. Way smaller. I'm playing baktria, and I'm having to deal with family -members- that have more somatophylakes than my faction -leader-. A Seleukid family member can have as many as 80 riders, and the pahlav even more, with their already powerful enough sahigan pahr inflated into sizes like 90+ to 100 for a family member, not to mention 120 for a leader and heir, sizes which my poor 70 for a leader and heir, 52 or 47 for everyone else, can't handle. I actually tried bribing over some members from other factions just to see what would happen. They all stayed inordinately powerful in Baktrian bodyguard terms! The Parthian fellow with 80 men I bribed still had 80 when he came over to my side! And the Saka family member I bribed with 87 cataphract bodyguards still had 87 somatophylakes when he came over! Needless to say, my faction leader only still had 70+.

And this doesn't happen only in Baktria. As SPQR, I bribed a couple of Epeirote generals, one with 97 and one with 78. They came over with those numbers, and after I put them at the head of the First Army of the Republic and fought a coupla battles, they actually rose in number to 100 and 80... while my True Roman bodyguards stayed at their pathetic 48, 52, 48, 40... Small wonder why in every campaign my armies are led by foreign leaders while my own stay at home.

Any idea why this is so? Surely not another balancing thing to make things more fair for the AI, I hope... there are limits, after all. My generals > their generals, so my general's bodyguard > their bodyguard is only a logical step, especially since they stay the same size after they are bribed over to me instead of having their bodyguards reduced to Baktrian/Roman/human player proportions.

[Watchman]

AFAIK a general's number of bodyguards is based off some arcane formula that chiefly deals with the Influence rating, an obscure bonus for the faction leader and heir, and to some degree the unit's experience level. AI generals tend to have their traits up the Wazoo, so of course they duly have fairly impressive private armies too.

Personally, I've found isolating them, tying them down with something tough (like your own BGs - recall that the AI is chronically incapable of using secondary melee weapons...) and mobbing them with hordes of low-level troops with AP weapons works well. In the case of Baktria, those Daha and Arachosian light cavalry as well as the two types of axe-toting beardy hillmen (particularly effective in woods, as cavalry take major penalties there) are a good choice - pretty much my regular Pahlav general-killers these days. Heck, Ehranshar Arshtabara with proper support have proven themselves perfectly capable of bogging and pinning down the darn Sahigans, and who cares if such cheap and easily retrained troops take some casualties in the process ?

[pezhetairoi]

Well, yeah. I've always done tying them down with BGs and pendulum-charging them to death. But that doesn't work in the cities where they congregate, since the bodyguards in the field are chronically capable of charging straight into my pantodapoi phalangitai, which are the best I've got owing to my reluctance to recruit mercenaries. They always get decimated there. But in the cities, in the cities! I don't think they do primary weapon charges there, just two hundred Sahigan Pahr in Kiat took down practically 80% of my Somatophylakes PLUS one family member, as well as over 300 pantodapoi phalangitai to boot... Erk.

I guess what i'm looking for is, is there any way to either nerf the AI generals' traits, or better my own through scripting?

And anyways, another question: Does '+1 to your bodyguard's valour' mean an addition to bodyguard size, or something other?

[Fondor_Yards]

Gives them 1 exp chevron

[pezhetairoi]

oh. right. Bah, is there no way i can increase my bodyguard size? Perhaps by editing the base unit size in EDB or something? I just feel more comfortable with bigger numbers for my faction at least.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Second, the bodyguard sizes are really annoying. And my personal experience, in melee the cavalry fights better with spears than with kopis.

I have a guy called Perdikkas sitting around in Edessa, he is a really experienced general, and having influence about 4 or 5, and since he fought his last battle a few years ago, he stayed in Edessa with 28 somatophylakes and not got a single one to reinforce his personal corps since then.