Sending the ai bankrupt?

[Razor1952]

While pursuing my goal to buy my way almost entirely to victory in Brittania campaign, I note that the ai is largely bankrupt all factions.

1.I surmise that having bought the provinces that formerly paid for the ai's armies the ai is left with overly large armies which sends them bankrupt as they don't release (any or enough) troops to balance their budget.

2.I also suspect that by giving away large sums (like 10k florins) to small factions(to raise relations), the ai trains more troops and this makes them even more bankrupt.

can anyone shed light on these theories, particularly if #2 is true then a good strat maybe is to give large $'s to ai to make them bankrupt.

BTW being bankrupt doesn't seem to make the ai any more (or less) likely to make a deal with you.

[Ramses II CP]

The AI is almost always bankrupt anyway. You have to really give them incredible amounts of 'free' money to keep them afloat, because, to put it bluntly, the AI is utterly incompetent.

[Poncho400]

What happens if a faction completely runs out of money? Do they go into the negatives? Do they split up and become rebels? Or do they sit there with their money at 0 and a bunch of large armies?

It sounds like an interesting way to kill off a faction.(and fun too!)

[Zaleukos]

They sit around with old stacks of crappy units, backstabbing you as soon as they think a border province is weak enough to pick.

Economic warfare could be fun, but in reality isnt, as the default situation already is that the AI is bankrupt. Thats why you get to fight militia units most of the time.

I think that the problem is that the AI makes recruitment decisions on a per turn basis, ignoring long term economic implications as well as what better units might become available. It would probably help a lot if the AI knew how to disband obsolete units once replacements are ready, but that is not moddable.

[ReiseReise]

Also, bankrupt in the diplomacy screen does not always mean they are bankrupt, it means less than 2500 florins iirc. Each 5000 florins after that is another level (<7500 = meagre, <12500 = very poor etc). To find out if they are really bankrupt you have to look at the score graphs. It would be fun if the graph went to negative so you could see exactly how bad the AI mangled its economy .

[Von Nanega]

Often I will butcher AI armies of militiamen just to free up funds for the AI to build better troops for me to butcher. Works nearly every time. I fight DFK from france and portugal in my English game all the time now.