Merc spam strat for AI 1.4 beta.

[Skinny]

I just want to hear from some players cause this is starting to annoy me.

I'm currently playing in the HRE, i'm one of the bigger powers (I started as a 1 prov county). But i'm finding it harder and harder to expand because the AI just has an endless supply of money and they're just merc spamming.

In my most recent war, i fielded around 20k trained regulars of the 5 different types so i'm sitting on an added combat bonus of 12.50%.

I start my war against the 4 other HRE members and the menu expects they'll field around the same-ish ammount of 15k -20k soldiers.

So tell me why right after the war starts, these 4 HRE minor nations are fielding over 100k (90% being mercs). I wipe them out and i check the war menu and their fielded troop count just keeps going up. At one point before i closed the game, i'd killed over 60k and they still had 80k in the field.

I reloaded my save, blew through the 42 thousand ducats i had in the bank to spam mercs and got nowhere near as many troops.

Literally how the ♥♥♥♥ are they affording this, i'm one of the richest nations in the match (in the ledger) and i can't field 100k in mercs in 1514.

[tonypa]

I only play with this mod to avoid merc spam:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3741498726

[cråck]

in the patch 1.3 patch, paradox disabled the ability of hre ai to wage wars
meaning all they do is dev province with 1 advisor, converting the religion / assimilating with the other advisor and stacking cash

try do it yourself untill 1520ish you'll see, you'll have plenty of money

in this kind of situations all you can do is to carpet siege as many war participant as you can this preventing them from building mercs
otherwaise if you can reload way before that dow, you could ally / carry favors with the 3 other participants and use the ability to isolate from allies, this will make the war even easier since you only have to carpet siege 1 guy

in 1400ish i saw the pope hiring 90k mercs
the ai simply spends all cash on mercs when defending in a war, even if they are not the main target

[ABoxFullOfKittens]

If you're playing in the HRE:
1. You can declare wars in 1.3
2. Factor in that everyone will spam mercs, assume it. You want your inner-HRE wars to be maybe 75%ish in your favor for it to "always go smoothly". Anything less and merc spawn capping, ie carpet sieging as someone called it, is a must lest it spiral out of control. Be army hunting and 100% capping only, till you get a grip on the merc spam. Save the castle sieges for last. It's doable but, more work. 50/50 if dicey unless you, like the AI, have been squirreling away and don't mind blowing it all on mercs.
TLDR: Cherry pick smaller targets.