Serious question: Does the AI not pay unit upkeep?

[BlackDragon]

For a while, now, I've noticed that the AI always seems to field IMMENSE armies. Not necessarily POWERFUL ones, with there often being a lot of Tier I-II units mixed in, but just... stack after stack after stack after stack, with loads of heroes piled on top. Assuming they don't get to just snap their fingers and make entire armies appear (and yes, I know there's a spell that actually does that, in one of the upper Chaos-tomes, I'm not talking about that), this almost has to mean that they're just producing units... like, ALL THE TIME, since they don't seem to have significantly more CITIES than I do. And yet, if I tried that, I'd be bankrupt in short order - even ignoring the cost of the actual units, the upkeep still adds up, FAST. Even the game's tutorials make it clear that you shouldn't build an army unless you're planning to USE it for something, due to those expenses. Having three-to-five full stacks of units just sitting around in each of your cities is ENORMOUSLY wasteful.

What it kind of FEELS like is that they couldn't get the AI to maintain a wise and balanced approach to unit production, so they just removed the upkeep from AI units in order to prevent them from inevitably crashing their own economies with their continuous unit buildup. Or am I just imagining things?

[Godsheal Powerloader]

They do have to pay for their stuff, but depending on the difficulty settings they get a huge discount on it.

[Azunai]

Afaik it's -20% upkeep on "normal", -33% on hard and -50% on brutal.

[aclyte]

AI pays for upkeep, but with discount (based on difficulty). The best place to see it is second "empires and ashes" story mission when Edward swarm the map with it's horde of T4 units - very quickly he run out of money and all this army become deserters.

[BlackDragon]

So, does that mean that on Easy, they actually pay full price for their units - both creation and upkeep? They just don't *care* and will bankrupt themselves without regard for the long-term consequences? Well, I guess that works, in a way... I *have* noticed some AI units deserting, though I haven't gotten to the map Aclyte mentioned yet. Guess I've got something to look forwards to!

[Aureus Seitaro]

The AI doesn't care if it wins, it only cares that the player loses. So, it fields tons of units without regards to the cost, as long as it keeps you drowning and unable to fight back. it doesn't care that after you die, that it's unable to defend itself against another force, because that doesn't matter.

[BlackDragon]

That sounds suitably grim, except that AI factions that are ALLIED with you, will ALSO make tons of units... and then usually just leave them sitting around, rarely doing anything with them unless there's a viable enemy RIGHT on their doorstep. Or, occasionally, throw entire armies away by trying to explore Wonders with ludicrously unfit forces - which, at least, might help to keep down those maintenance-expenses!

Hanlon's Razor comes to mind - "Never attribute to malice what can be equally explained by incompetence."

[Silvera]

I do not know if it was ever toned down but I remember for the first month or two around launch the AI would usually throw doomballs of some insane 10-20+ stacks of six, all piled with various T1-T2-heroes, at me all at once as soon as war was declared. This was in toward end game and would often result in the burnout effect of just wanting the match to end because it was so tedious. They do not seem to be quite that bad now, with the exception of the higher difficulties still doomballing you and making for quite the chore just to clear it out.

On the flip side it is equally possible to have a significantly massive sized amount of stacks yourself if you've expanded correctly. Going as far as to even include various T3 units and higher within them. When you hit the stage of the game of being able to do that regularly with each match you really start to see how gamy the AI is with discounts and ( sometimes ) handicaps.

They are still adjusting the AI. So perhaps in time we will see something more reasonable that isn't quite so tedious and gamy to deal with. At least I hope so, as there is fun to be had here.

[Lynch]

Yep AI just cheated 9 units while the last siege lasted. Question is, do you want to win against AI that has 0 numbers left? I think its just evening out the odds since you probally have a human brain.

[BlackDragon]

Originally posted by Silvera:

On the flip side it is equally possible to have a significantly massive sized amount of stacks yourself if you've expanded correctly. Going as far as to even include various T3 units and higher within them. When you hit the stage of the game of being able to do that regularly with each match you really start to see how gamy the AI is with discounts and ( sometimes ) handicaps.

This is the part I wanted to focus on. You're not WRONG, of course, but the only way I've been able to build anything like those AI 'doomballs' myself, is by first focusing on expansion and economy, and only beginning the big military build-up when I've got a healthy cash-flow and capacious bank-account to draw on. What bugs me about the AI is that it seems to be building units nonstop, from turn 1, and still somehow managing. I'm currently getting a first-hand demonstration of how impossible that is, by playing the 'Grexolis' mission of the original campaign, and foolishly picking the 'Ritual of the Tides' at the start. Because of that, I get 2-3 'free' units of tier 1-2 spawning in every five turns. Even without having to pay for them, and building next to no units myself, I'm still struggling to make ends meet just because of the rapidly-mounting upkeep. Currently got a net cashflow of three gold per turn, and I'm genuinely worried that I'll run out of gold for construction. Mostly relying on a few Chaos-type unlocks to provide me with the extra money needed to stay afloat...

So, yeah, still wondering how the AI can possibly survive the kind of military buildups they do, even on Easy Mode where they have no advantages in terms of reduced upkeep... I guess I should keep an eye out for deserters - though, it DOES take some time before being outta cash starts translating into desertions, for better or worse. I learned THAT the hard way too - hot tip: Don't play as a primarily Shadow-focused character who hasn't taken the Book of Necromancy as their starter in the Grexolis - like, say, Artica! You'll start with a powerful Tier V unit that requires Souls in upkeep, and no immediate way to acquire Souls.

[RAmieL]

It's not just lower upkeep but faster production time as well. AI spawns stacks out of thin air. You defeat 6x6 blob and 2 or 3 turns later AI sends another blob. Fighting 18vs18 battle twice a turn, every few turns is time consuming and does get tedious.

[Silvera]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

This is the part I wanted to focus on. You're not WRONG, of course, but the only way I've been able to build anything like those AI 'doomballs' myself, is by first focusing on expansion and economy, and only beginning the big military build-up when I've got a healthy cash-flow and capacious bank-account to draw on. What bugs me about the AI is that it seems to be building units nonstop, from turn 1, and still somehow managing. I'm currently getting a first-hand demonstration of how impossible that is, by playing the 'Grexolis' mission of the original campaign, and foolishly picking the 'Ritual of the Tides' at the start. Because of that, I get 2-3 'free' units of tier 1-2 spawning in every five turns. Even without having to pay for them, and building next to no units myself, I'm still struggling to make ends meet just because of the rapidly-mounting upkeep. Currently got a net cashflow of three gold per turn, and I'm genuinely worried that I'll run out of gold for construction. Mostly relying on a few Chaos-type unlocks to provide me with the extra money needed to stay afloat...

So, yeah, still wondering how the AI can possibly survive the kind of military buildups they do, even on Easy Mode where they have no advantages in terms of reduced upkeep... :nonplussed_creep: I guess I should keep an eye out for deserters - though, it DOES take some time before being outta cash starts translating into desertions, for better or worse. I learned THAT the hard way too - hot tip: Don't play as a primarily Shadow-focused character who hasn't taken the Book of Necromancy as their starter in the Grexolis - like, say, Artica! You'll start with a powerful Tier V unit that requires Souls in upkeep, and no immediate way to acquire Souls. :wat_creep:

I'm not really sure what you're doing to struggle with upkeep that much. You should have a significantly powerful force if you're properly pushing yourself to that kind of limit, unless you are just hurting that badly all around because of terrain and/or infestations or even wars with other players/AI. Part of churning out units while maintaining expansion while having a large and powerful force is anticipation of what you'll need in at least two turns ahead minimum. Running on enough to start each next construction you need, being able to que replacements ( in more than one city at a time mid to late game ) immediately as you need them, and having a few in reserve you can temporarily replace losses while your new ones produce. It just takes some practice and a little feel for the numbers, so don't stress about it too much you'll get a good flow going.

Grexolis is a special cookie though... When I did that I built backwards and used my starting city as the front line. The AI did not want to rush past it, being my throne city and all too, and it let me build up an economy unimpeded. It's been covered at GDCs before that the more you have to give your AI special cheats, buffs, whatever, the more gamy players will play to exploit the fault in the AI's logic and/or behavior. The AI here is /very/ exploitable if you study it a little. The game is fun for relaxing and doing some kind of casual RP playthrough, but as soon as you start notching up the difficulty you will indeed find yourself more often than not locking in to specific tomes and builds not to counter any clever play or use of spells and enchantments from the AI. But instead the mass of discounts and spam it does. It can result in many games feeling the same a little more than halfway in. For some people they like that though, so to each their own. Thankfully though the AI does not dispel spam to little or no effect in this one!

Basically what RAmieL said. It's what I had mentioned earlier about getting burnt out. It's totally beatable, but it quickly becomes more of a chore than anything else. When the game gets to that point I just make sure I have en economy strong enough to massively churn out full stacks of significantly buffed T1 units only a couple of turns. Adding summons, whatever I need to in order to get it up in two or so turns. I just throw it at the AI and autoresolve everything. Merge any stacks with missing units and march onward. I do not care if I lose everything because I have another blob already on the way. I tried before to fight more like the game intends and every time I did that I just got tired of the constant stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks the AI would produce. Most of the time I just go for a non-military victory though to save me the chore of dealing with that. Auto resolve is easier to click when the AI blobs come to your blobs instead. All you have to do then is win lazily.

[~ Fabulous ~]

NPC AI don't

Player AI do

[SQW]

The balance is kinda in a weird state for me right now. On Very Hard, I can steam roll the AI after turn 50 when my economy/research kicks into gear. On Brutal, the AI can spam just enough tier IIIs ranked up units to make every win costly enough and replaces lost stacks quick enough that I can't push through to siege their cities.

Although I'm playing pure nature barbarian right now and they lack the ranged nuke that I'm accustomed with other tomes.