Does anyone else notice that the AI civs have massive city garrisons when they play? I am seeing cities with 20 to 30 units in them?

I assume this is some kind of effect with this mod as i havent seen this in normal games.

Is there some kind of strategy i should be using for this doesnt happen? The only strategy i have found so far is bring in some catapults to knock down there defenses then hope and pray i have enough units.

usually there are offencive units. Just declare a war and he puts all this units onyto you :)

But yes this is annoying... Better AI again i think.

Most I've seen was all (6 or 7) German towns (on the world map) guarded by 50+ units... and we were barely in the medieval ages - at that time, playing as England, I could afford 2 unit garrisons and a couple more troops.

It's obvious that they are getting some serious troop costs discount.... I'd go so far as to say, substantially more than they need! ;)

I know that with opened borders (me as Mali, Rifling in 1300AD) and Isablea as my vassal with opened borders was resarching my 1000years old feudalism. It took her 37 turns...

Once again, I agree. AI needs to be taught when to stop building units. I am thinking along the lines of... say... a hard limit.

Player and AI shouldn't be able to build more military units than combined population of their cities. If you have a city of three and a city of two, you'll be able to field five military units. After all, you need to draw your soldiers from somewhere!

How about making City growth slower when producing units ? Exept siege and Tamks, as they dont need that much man quantity.

How about making City growth slower when producing units ? Exept siege and Tamks, as they dont need that much man quantity.

Great idea!
Perhaps some advanced civics should allow you to build with production instead but with the default/early civics you should build all units the way you build settlers and workers. This makes historic sense too; what happened when America stopped "building units" in real life 1946? Baby boom!! ;)
This would hamper the computer player more than the human player, however. But it would be worth it, I think.

How about making City growth slower when producing units ? Exept siege and Tamks, as they dont need that much man quantity.

Not a good idea, IMHO. The main idea was that AI was already struggling building lots of units. If it is implemented it will just hurt AI more.

Yes but ever saw what happens if AI moves such big stack to attack ? They will OWN all other AI.
The problem with camping large stacks near cities is only vs Human Playe, so i saw (my vassal cityw as under siege, 37 unit stack all attacked and captured that city, not 3 each turn like its vs Human)

Maybe to give :mad: per every produced unit like with draft?
-"I don't want to be in army!"

or to give :mad: for every 2units more than limit (i.e.: 5)
-"I hate this soldiers round every corner!"

@ Vertico

What about Heridary Rule civic than ?

Would have no effect with too many troops.

or to give :mad: for every 2units more than limit (i.e.: 5)
-"I hate this soldiers round every corner!"

You could set a higher limit (i.e. : 10 instead of 5, for a city of 2 & 3) under the Heriditary Rule civic. Eventually the inconvenience of having soldiers everywhere will outweigh the love of the ruler.

Yes, AI seems to build _a lot_ of units. I once captured Spanish capital early in the game after she moved a 20 unit stack out of the city, she then proceeded to approach one of my cities which was extremely poorly defended (I underestimated Isabella :)) but she only attacked with 3-4 units per turn which allowed me to barely defend my city and wipe out the Spanish.

If she had attacked with all her units in one turn I'd have been toast. That's a major AI issue I believe, why give defenders the chance?

Of course, next time I met Isabella early in the game I waited till I had Catapults... and wiped her out clean this time :D

The problem with that is that the Anti-War Sentiment that War Weariness represents is a very new phenom. Only in the last 70 years has there been noticable "War, What is it good for..." Problems.

I'd really like to see War Weariness removed until either Printing Press or Mass Media. The later because that is where most of the WW comes from, the former because it's too easy to simply ignore the Mass Media tech simply because of the WW effects, and Printing Press already gives huge boosts, so why not add a small negative to it?

If you think about it abstractly, each unit represents something like 2 or 3 hundred men, while each population point represents 2 or 3 thousand people. So making a hard cap wont effect it too much. The best way to handle too many units, find a way to get rid of the discount the AI gets on them, or reduce it so its not so obscene anymore.

Is it feasible to do that every resource required to make a unit (iron, oil etc.) can only "support" a limited number (say, 1 iron allows 10 swordsmen, 2 allow 20 etc.), probably +1 for every barracks controlled? That will solve two issues at once - not only we have (dramatically) reduced armies and more thougtful and tactical warfare as a consequence (no more "who can build more cannons" style), but also it becomes crucial to acquire multiple instances of a resource, especially if you want to gain advantage over someone. Historically army size was more dependednt not on ability to produce and field units, but on ability to supply them.

Is it feasible to do that every resource required to make a unit (iron, oil etc.) can only "support" a limited number (say, 1 iron allows 10 swordsmen, 2 allow 20 etc.), probably +1 for every barracks controlled? That will solve two issues at once - not only we have (dramatically) reduced armies and more thougtful and tactical warfare as a consequence (no more "who can build more cannons" style), but also it becomes crucial to acquire multiple instances of a resource, especially if you want to gain advantage over someone. Historically army size was more dependednt not on ability to produce and field units, but on ability to supply them.

I don't think it's a good idea. Imagine: one player has 1 iron, 1 copper, 1 saltpeter, whatever, and the another player has nothing. Yet the latter builds say 30 archers/longbowmen/whatever and the poor guy with the resources can't win with his 10 swords/axes/whatever. Right?

I think the scale here is more general and has to remain such. It's fun and tricky enough when I have to defend my 4 cities through half of the game against those Arab horsemen with my footies, because I happen to lack horses... :)

I don't think it's a good idea. Imagine: one player has 1 iron, 1 copper, 1 saltpeter, whatever, and the another player has nothing. Yet the latter builds say 30 archers/longbowmen/whatever and the poor guy with the resources can't win with his 10 swords/axes/whatever. Right?

I think the scale here is more general and has to remain such. It's fun and tricky enough when I have to defend my 4 cities through half of the game against those Arab horsemen with my footies, because I happen to lack horses... :)

Not quite. He can build those archers too... :)

And generally, I'd limit those units that currently require no resources too, say (number of cities + number of :health: resources) * 10. Currently, if you have lots of money (one Great Merchant!), your army can become as large as you theoretically can crank out - but that wasn't the case IRL.

Mexico is working on solving Better AI massive garisons. Now he has hard time at work, so patch release goes slower. Carthagian allready has punic mercenaries, that cost 1 gold upkeep. But the problem is, does AI actually have gold ? Or only gold income for diplomacy pourpouses ?

But i can tell what you allready know. Next version will not be savegame compatible :lol: as well as adding another new expiriance of tactics, strategy and game play :D.

Blakes and Iustus's "Better AI" has been upgraded about three times, after the version used in TR Gold.

So once the stable version is released and incorporated into this mod, things will only get better - or worse. (depending on how good a player you are.) :D

Blakes and Iustus's "Better AI" has been upgraded about three times, after the version used in TR Gold.

So once the stable version is released and incorporated into this mod, things will only get better - or worse. (depending on how good a player you are.) :D

did you also read discussion in betterAI thread ? - this massive stack problem is still reported

did you also read discussion in betterAI thread ? - this massive stack problem is still reported

True, but a new version - 25/01 has just been released - so lets wait for feedback on that.

True, but a new version - 25/01 has just been released - so lets wait for feedback on that.


yes, i was implemented this into development version, look promising
(note: i am implementing new code each two days, as it is commited to betterAI SVN repository)
this also solve some OOS in MP
also i made some modification to betterAI code, so group size is limited to 15 (but configurable). you steel can meet bigger stack if there is more groups on one plot, but not so big as before)

also i made some modification to betterAI code, so group size is limited to 15 (but configurable). you steel can meet bigger stack if there is more groups on one plot, but not so big as before)

That is a good idea as large stacks in TR suffer the crowded promotion. So limiting the number in a group should help the AI a bit. As long as it does not stack to many groups together.

Umm Mexico...
WorldMap, Noble Diff.

20 units per each city +20 for capital + 40 for war... And still producing. Also that AI is MORE advanced than I. (used World Builder to check this)
Hes Alexander, 3 cities, allways had sick loads of units, barelly any improvements.
Im Bismark, 3 cities, 5 defenders each city (happines from heridary rule) and each city has 2 axemans to chase after AI slaves that want to settle in my country.

How come Alexander has enough money for resarch and so many units ! Like he dont pay for them. Remeber Mercenary problem ? AI wasnt paying for them eigther. Is this Civ code, or some components ?

Next game as Isabella i rushed Barcelona and from there warrior, warrior, warrior (...), fishing boat, fishing boat, warrior, warior, (...), archer. Declared war at Napoleon. RAZED all exept Paris (as its good positioned city). From war i nerelly resarched bronze working. Healed my remaining force and attacked Germany. Captured Berlin almost lost all army, but was enough to defend till i signed peace. Now with bronze it was hypaspistx40, attack Rome. Than Greece. Europe was mine. I decided i Won this game and retired.

Thats the tactics vs "Better" AI. I won another game on duel map vs 3 civs (razed all cities, didnt even got unit stronger than archer...). I like playing civ builder, have my defencive army. But all AI do is stack units adn declare STUPID WARS. Like Persia did vs India. They rushed nearelly all their units leaving Persepolis defended by 1 warriors 1 hypaspist... 1 slavary rebelion 1 axeman 1 spearman and Persian civ has been destroyed. Or I had a game where Chooson (Korea) decalred war in turn #200 on my Vikings...


Please, no more Better AI. It changes CIV IV into Age of Empires. Make cheapest and most numerable units and attack. No tactics. Normally i attacked with 6 axemans 3 archers and some spearmans to protect form horses. Now why make any tactics, when it quanity that wins ?

Hi everyone,

Just have to say, love the mod. But this problem is making it unplayable now. I am using the vanilla verison, so I dont know if this is unique to this version, but from the above post it seems it is in warlords also.
I am not sure if it is Blakes AI mod with the new way slavery is dealt with, but in a current game (I am Rome, World Map) the AI has been garrisoning all their slaves in their cities while the country side remains fertile yet undeveloped.
For instance, France demanded a tribute of copper from me, so to keep him from attacking I relented, even though I coud see that he had a copper resource near Paris, the hill has no mine on it. A few turns later he declared war on me, and I slaughtered his huntsmen with my axmen and spearmen on his initial charge, then proceeded to wipe out France. After seeing his country side and how un improved it was, I sent an informant and scouts out to check out the rest of world around me.
It was more of the same. Civs with outdated units in large numbers garrisoned in cities, while the surrounding area remained unimproved while 1 to 6 or so slaves sat idly in the comfort of the citie walls. A lonely worker sometimes toiled away at the land. I sat a few scouts around these cities to make sure they were not at war and afraid to leave workers unprotected, but this did not seem to be the case.
If you guys have seen this or if it has been discussed already, I apologize. It seems that either the AI mod or the new way slavery works is not working correctly. The AI is just not using its slaves, and it makes it too easy to tech way ahead and gain an insurmountable military lead, when all that land remains unimproved.
Sorry for the long winded repsonse.

Please, no more Better AI. It changes CIV IV into Age of Empires. Make cheapest and most numerable units and attack. No tactics. Normally i attacked with 6 axemans 3 archers and some spearmans to protect form horses. Now why make any tactics, when it quanity that wins ?

I'm in agreement here. Better AI is a good idea, but it needs to be changed... The resource limits on military units would be an excellent balancer that would likely fix most of the problems with it.

As it stands now, though, Better AI is hideously cheap. I just can't bring myself to tolerate every other civilisation having twenty-odd units defending each city and having the same research rate as me, while I can only muster two, maybe three units per city.

If the resource limit on military units is possible, I say go for it. Wouldn't hurt to give it a shot, eh?