Large Neighboring Nations don't Build Armies Anymore

[Snowflake]

I played a game as Romania, and during the 17th century, as my nation was rising to power, large, ruthless battles that bloodied the land happened over and all across the European landscape. The largest was a ~120k vs ~150k that lasted for months and had half of the continent fighting in it, when France declared war on me and my allies to stop my expansion.

But then, around the end of the century, it all turned quiet. European nations (except Portugal and England, for some reason) stopped recruiting armies. As their standing ones withered away in various wars, they where not replaced, and one by one Austria, France, Castille, Russia, Egypt and the Ottomans all became soldier-less lands by the middle of the 18th century. In the end the only resistance to my map-painting was my ability to handle various rebelions that popped up around my growing Kingdom.

At some point I even declared war on the coalition that had formed against me, which included literally everyone in Europe, except my 3 allies (that had also stopped building troops), and when I opeopend the war screen, there where 360k soldiers on my side, and 30 (!) across the rest of Europe.

How is this possible? Why did everyone in the old continent turn pacifist? India, Ming and Japan had sizable armies (~80k - 100k each) at this time, and that part of the worled seemed animated. Did it ever happen to you before?

[Korburss]

I've noticed Castile/Spain (Portugal as well but only on the last game.) is being... odd about troops in my latest two games. They are still building them but not on their mainland and I can't find where these mystical thousands of troops are.

At first I thought the AI was just glitching because of a randomized New World but the same is happening again without.

The first game was so bad about it Castile/Spain ended up split between France and Aragon after they apparently abandoned the old world after taking over Morocco, Algiers, and Tunsia. The only time I saw any troops was when they suddenly built 15-20 troops and left them sitting there as France destroyed them one at a time.

In the second game I'm still seeing stacks of 10-30k but nowhere near what they have and they don't seem to be building a navy. Only to the 1550 so far but they are already falling apart. Oh and strangest (Or stupidest anyways.), Castile attacked Aragon wanting their provinces and proceeded to give me two of them which wrecked our alliance.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

the AI will go into tremendous debt in some of its wars recruiting mercs like crazy. They won't buy back most of their army till they have money again.

[Sarkin]

could be they also just ran out of manpower o.o to recruit more with..while it doesn't happen in my games much , i'm usually pretty peaceful only going to war to defend allies or if theres an enemy i wanna weaken..

if the AI has no manpower then like us it can't recruit new non-merc armies. an from what i've seen the AI doesn't maintain mercs when at peace(i could be wrong) or atleast when i've ended wars with AI who had to resort to mercs after there standing army was beaten , after peace was signed immediately disbanded the mercs.

leaving them with no standing army.

while France Castilla and England usually have large manpower reserves/recovery it is possible to break them to the point it'll take awhile for them to recover enough to be able to recruit more.

[Snowflake]

Still, no new armies in Europe for over 100 years? I can understand debt and manpower constraints, but say, a fully formed Russia should recover out of any setback in a couple of decades at most.

Durin a war aorund 1805 they I litrally marched to the Moskow province with 1/4 of one of my armies (15k soldiers), and sat there encountering no opposition until I occupied it.

Is it possible that the AI decides to not build troops if he knows he would loose a war anyway? (At that time I could have probably won a any war where France, Russia and Castille where actually dishing it out, though with great strain on my own resources).

[Sarkin]

well just because you weren't fighting it. doesn't mean it wasn't at war in other places. an Russia/China territories it can take quite awhile to march troops from one province ot the next. but i dunno..

the only time i encoutnered something like that was France had its entire army attacking the ottomans an i declared war while its homeland was defenseless. an my fleet managed to block there main army from returning home via ship.

so i was able to take most france(eventually all of) .

but that was the closest to it. so its possible there armies are just trapped somewhere? you can use the ledger to check there army size an stuff (though i think the ledgers are to informative sometimes) . also the level of there debt , an income.

but if you're using a mod , or something could be a glitch/bug.