ai has...a lot of armies...

[Warlord-616x]

so i just realized why my ally has been so effective: hes got 10 or 11 full sized armies to my 5 despite having far less territory and no vassals of his own.

and seeing as hes ahead of me i have to betray my ally if i want to try and be emperor which im preparing to do but...why am i so horribly outnumbered?

this upcoming fight doesnt seem like its going to be very fun if hes got such an advantage and can rebuild armies in just a couple of turns once they are destroyed whereas it may take me several turns just to restore my own forces...

and our territories are kinda interwoven so this is going to get ugly...

[Warlord-616x]

i just keep lookign at all those armies he has floating across my territory and wodering how im supposed to take on the half in my backfields and make progress against his spread out territories at the same time...

my territory is not small. and this is going to be like wackamole across much of a continent...

[panderusw]

Judging from your post, this ally you mention probably Liu Bei? If he is, most of his armies probably will be militia units, and shouldn't too hard to deal with. Doesn't matter who that ally is, the AI cheat, more and more going up by campaign difficulty.

About territory, 99% of the time, I corner camp, start out early by conquering land, trade away land, and slow establish a piece of territory that are by the corner. When it is time to fight against the world(declare emperor), it just make thing so much easier.

[Elfie]

Originally posted by Warlord-616x:

i just keep lookign at all those armies he has floating across my territory and wodering how im supposed to take on the half in my backfields and make progress against his spread out territories at the same time...

my territory is not small. and this is going to be like wackamole across much of a continent...

Thats the lategame for you in this game, unfortunately. Endless and grueling linewar against hordes of armies of you prime competitor for emperorship with both having unlimited funds.

If you have problems with replenishment, give your heroes artefacts that increase replenishment and research specific branches. If you are doing everything correctly your armies should also replenish to full in 1-2 turns.

Also, don't bother waiting for "mustering" units to re-muster for 2 turns. Just hire new ones straight away - this way they will replenish faster, this will give much more value than their lost Xp.

[Warlord-616x]

Originally posted by panderusw:

Judging from your post, this ally you mention probably Liu Bei? If he is, most of his armies probably will be militia units, and shouldn't too hard to deal with. Doesn't matter who that ally is, the AI cheat, more and more going up by campaign difficulty.

About territory, 99% of the time, I corner camp, start out early by conquering land, trade away land, and slow establish a piece of territory that are by the corner. When it is time to fight against the world(declare emperor), it just make thing so much easier.

ya it is lui bei. it seemed the proper choice for cao cao for the early days of the campaign lol. but ya ive got a couple vassals and plan on dropping my current coalition and starting a new one immediately after some court intrigue and hopefully that will give me a bit more coverage.

and good to know that his armies arent the full monty. ive been procrastinating playing just thinking about that lol

[Warlord-616x]

Originally posted by Elfie:

Originally posted by Warlord-616x:

i just keep lookign at all those armies he has floating across my territory and wodering how im supposed to take on the half in my backfields and make progress against his spread out territories at the same time...

my territory is not small. and this is going to be like wackamole across much of a continent...

Thats the lategame for you in this game, unfortunately. Endless and grueling linewar against hordes of armies of you prime competitor for emperorship with both having unlimited funds.

If you have problems with replenishment, give your heroes artefacts that increase replenishment and research specific branches. If you are doing everything correctly your armies should also replenish to full in 1-2 turns.

Also, don't bother waiting for "mustering" units to re-muster for 2 turns. Just hire new ones straight away - this way they will replenish faster, this will give much more value than their lost Xp.

ya just went through and got a bunch of those, fingers crossed :)

[Fedup]

I had like 10-11 army slots. Then I became King~>Emperor at the same turn. My army count exploded as I added many adminisrators. I didn't fill my army quota, but theoretically I could have fielded well over 20 armies in the end-game.
Which I really didn't have to do. I have sneak-conquered some minor crapland near my enemy's capital. Summoned there 5-6 armies. When I declared war on him I was at his capital within 2 turns. Conquered with the first two armies, and since I had 106 areas I automatically won the game.

PS. Armies: I used low-tier units for the entire game. At first, I couldn't afford the good ones. By the time I had like 7 armies, I didn't have to - I fielded 4 modest armies with 3-hero armies following them and thus I could fight at two fronts. When things "got serious" I was at an 11 army cap and could afford to stack large cheap armies of 2 1/2 stacks each. To keep making tons of money (I was always concerned that I will meet that AI-army-spam you mentioned, something like Realm Divide of S2TW) I used armies of upkeep 2500-3000.


Anyway, to come to the point:
The other guy is fielding 11 armies, and so can you. If you want to play with 11 cheap armies or 7 elite armies is personal taste. However, keep in mind that even in moderate difficulty the AI gets bonuses in the economy; the AI's 11 armies cost less than they would for you.

[Too Much Salt]

You can easily destroy AI with larger armies with cheese tactic. Also, your capital city itself is a free army with an undeployed administrator (2 city garrison + 1 administrator retinues).