Golden Hoard

[Martok]

Well yours is definitely the largest I've ever heard of thus far (my personal record was only around 66,000 or so). If anyone's got yours topped, I'd be pretty surprised.

(Of course, I didn't think it was possible to get a ransom as large as yours to begin with -- usually only the human-controlled faction ever has enough cash to pay that kind of money.... )

[caravel]

(Of course, I didn't think it was possible to get a ransom as large as yours to begin with -- usually only the human-controlled faction ever has enough cash to pay that kind of money.... )

Any faction can ransom it's troops of course as you are allowed to can go into the red (borrow) to do so, but I've yet to see the AI actually pay more than about 50,000 - 60,000 florins. I can remember capturing about 2000 -3000 men including a king and nobles in a single battle on several occasions, the ransom would been huge but the AI didn't pay. Now the AI can pay, because it can borrow the money, but for some reason it doesn't. I wonder how the AI actually 'decides' on this?

[The Unknown Guy]

I think that having heirs or not is a big factor, althrough they will in general try to spare the king (which is nonsensical, strategically speaking.. I´ve seen them not pay ransoms of princes and then die of old age heirless. I´d rather risk a new, younger king than get stuck with the old one and risk him croaking before breeding again). Being the GH, and likely w/o heirs, it makes sense that the AI will go full red in order to avoid getting wiped off by lack of leader.

Come to think about it: The GH would work much better as a "Terror from the Steppes" faction if they could be given an elective heir system, like the HRE. That way they wouldn´t collapse spectacullarily by risking their Khan in combat.
They´d collapse anyway by bloat effect, to which they´re particularily vulnerable, but it´d happen much later (In a Byzantium game I saw the GH actually thrive for a while, but after the poles and the Rus started resisting their assaults at Kiev (sucesive takings and retakings), their influence dropped, they lost a lot of vital units, and eventually the Rus managed to push them to... well, to MY lands, but too weak to attempt anything. In fact, after they collapsed into a civil war I had to save them from a Turkish resurgence...

[Agent Miles]

BTW, I reloaded that turn and fought out the battle myself to see what might change (or at least tried to). After two hours of shooting fish in a barrel, I had enough. First came an uncoordinated attack by the GH Warriors, who were slaughtered by the AHC. However, the GH Heavy Cav are no match for my Saracens. One second after they charge, it’s “losing very badly” time. The GH horse archers simply get shredded by the Futuwwa. As predicted, the four mortars just sat there out of range as the AI’s twelve units battled my sixteen. I had captured the Khan, but I was killing more and capturing less than the auto-calc, so I probably would have got a smaller ransom.