How can the AI build such big armies so quickly?

[jasonvorheas24]

I've been playing an eye of the vortex campaign as Malekith. In this campaign I've been struggling against the skaven to the south of me, the tomb kings to the west, and the lizardmen also to the south. I'll win many battles annihilating their armies just for them to rebuild that stack plus more within 2-3 turns. They'll drop from the rank 2-10 nation down to like 40 and be back at 2-10 within no time.

I'll raid their lands, sack their settlements, raze their settlements thinking I'll cripple their economy and public order thus they won't be able to afford such large armies and have to fight off rebellions. But no I have the tomb kings down to like 2 settlements and their coming at me with just as big of an army as when they had 10 settlements making it such a pain in the ass to try to kill them off.

Its kind of frustrating as I feel like losing an entire stack should cripple your nation allowing your enemy to march into your lands with ease and take your cities. I don't understand where the hell they are getting the money to build all these armies as I know if I was in their situation I'd probably be in a deficit of gold and my armies would be dying of attrition.

Sorry for this being so long, I'm still enjoying the game but I just feel like winning these battles is not rewarding or satisfying as it should be. My expansion comes halt because the 2-3 stack army I worked hard to destroy gets rebuilt in no time with the AI's endless supply of gold coming from god knows where.

[Toby Larone]

Tomb Kings don't pay for their armies and can recruit as many spear and sword skelletons as they have slots for. They have a cap on high tier units which increases with buildings.

[RCMidas]

Yeah, you've got no choice of crippling the Tomb Kings' economy because they don't really need one. Even as the AI with a single minor settlement to their name, a late-game Tomb Kings faction can field seven 20-stacks at the same time, albeit with pretty much nothing but baseline skeletons.

Skaven too have a singularly robust economy when it comes to churning out large armies quickly, since they can just spam slaves at practically no cost, and usually get a considerable bonus to replenishment of the same.

[Vanidas]

If you lose all your armies, upkeep drops to 0, plus all factions get a 2,500 income base. That's essentially 12.5 unit recruitment cost per turn, and assuming it takes 2 turns to recruit a full stack(which it doesn't), you can easily afford the cost of another full stack. Plus, the AI mismanages the crap out of its settlements, so they always have money to spare rebuilding their army.

[jasonvorheas24]

Originally posted by the Spanish Inquisition:

Tomb Kings don't pay for their armies and can recruit as many spear and sword skelletons as they have slots for. They have a cap on high tier units which increases with buildings.

Well damn that makes a little more sense then, I didn't know that. No wonder their such a pain in the ass to fight.
I still have similar issues with the every other race I fight though. I mean I guess the skaven are suppose to be a spamy race but they still seem to have an endless supply of money and don't seem to suffer much from public order as I do.

[Zorlond]

Even without the AI playing Tomb Kings, fact is the AI in vanilla is immune to economy. It can raise three armies full of top-tier units with just one village in it's control and not care about the cost. Or the fact that it's built units it doesn't have buildings for.

The worse an AI is at actually playing a game, the more propped-up it is with cheat crutches to pretend it's actually 'difficult'. And the AI here is pretty damn bad at playing the game.

[Vanidas]

The AI also gets a bonus to the military presence modifier. A player's bonus is based on the quality of units as well as quantity, but the AI gets a 1:1 ratio. In other words, they have to be losing more than 20 public order just to mitigate the benefits of a full stack.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

fact is the AI in vanilla is immune to economy.

Wrong.

The AI has economic boosts, yes (and the bonuses are higher on higher AI difficulty settings), but there are several threads in these forums where players have demonstrated that, depending on the AI enemy, a player *can* cripple the AI's economy to the point where the AI will only be able to raise garrison armies of, at max, 5-8 units.

[jasonvorheas24]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Even without the AI playing Tomb Kings, fact is the AI in vanilla is immune to economy. It can raise three armies full of top-tier units with just one village in it's control and not care about the cost. Or the fact that it's built units it doesn't have buildings for.

The worse an AI is at actually playing a game, the more propped-up it is with cheat crutches to pretend it's actually 'difficult'. And the AI here is pretty damn bad at playing the game.

Yea i mean I don't want the game to be too easy but at the same time I kind of hate the fact that my enemy plays by different rules than I do. I like having the option of attacking my enemy's economy in games like this to win rather than having to destroy never ending waves of spawned enemies.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Even without the AI playing Tomb Kings, fact is the AI in vanilla is immune to economy. It can raise three armies full of top-tier units with just one village in it's control and not care about the cost. Or the fact that it's built units it doesn't have buildings for.

The worse an AI is at actually playing a game, the more propped-up it is with cheat crutches to pretend it's actually 'difficult'. And the AI here is pretty damn bad at playing the game.

While it's true the AI has heavy economic bonuses to make the game more interesting, you are misrepresenting the facts to such a degree I'm not sure if you just want somebody to correct you.
The AI can NOT build units without the correct building. The AI does NOT have infinite gold. If indeed they are only sitting at a single settlement, they will be hard pressed to field 3 stacks, most likely less than that.
This is ridiculous.

[Vanidas]

The AI is so stupid it needs the buffs to survive. It builds random recruitment buildings everywhere instead of actually maintaining its economy, commits suicide with its full stacks, waits for the enemy to kill them in a siege when they have a full 2 stacks nearby that can break it, etc. Plus, most AIs don't know how to properly use the main features of their faction, for example the Dark Elves and Slaves. If you play it right, you can get a mid to late game economy in the early game by repeatedly sacking settlements for slaves, but the AI never actually does that instead preferring to conquer a city or two and wait for the endless HE doomstacks to arrive.

[Orochimaru-sama]

skaven slaves and ally tomb kings.....

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

The AI can NOT build units without the correct building. The AI does NOT have infinite gold.

Yes it can, and yes it does. I've played enough to see this first-hand on many occasions. If the devs didn't design it to do that deliberately, then they did it accidentally, and never corrected it (possibly from ignorance, possibly from apathy). The code of the game isn't in question here, only the end results of actual play.

Reduce an AI to one village in late-game (turn 100+), and they will field stupidly overpowered armies that it could not possibly field except via immunity to economy.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Yes it can, and yes it does. I've played enough to see this first-hand on many occasions.

Well, it's up to you to prove it. I'd be happy to be corrected.
Good luck have fun.

[[N63] chrisragnar]

Well the battles are almost the only gameplay in the game so. Unless you are autoresolving, battles the fun part. Push on untill they break, you should not have to retreat to recoup. If you do, so does the ai. And they get to cheat, moreso on high difficulty.

[[N63] chrisragnar]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

The AI can NOT build units without the correct building. The AI does NOT have infinite gold.

Yes it can, and yes it does. I've played enough to see this first-hand on many occasions. If the devs didn't design it to do that deliberately, then they did it accidentally, and never corrected it (possibly from ignorance, possibly from apathy). The code of the game isn't in question here, only the end results of actual play.

Reduce an AI to one village in late-game (turn 100+), and they will field stupidly overpowered armies that it could not possibly field except via immunity to economy.

I have only seen the opposite, ai that have been broken to only one settlement usually just make a full stack of low tier melee infantry.