army size demographics - bug? difficulty modifier?

[woodshadows]

I've noticed in G&K I can never get my army size in the demographics to reach very high, despite (I can't prove this, though I'm fairly certain) having the largest army in the game, of troops which are contemporary with the others. I'm wondering if there is some difficulty modifier which causes the human players army to appear lower than reality in order to induce the ai to declare war more often; alternatively I wonder if the AI's military strength is artificially increased to make them appear more fearsome (which also causes them to stop building units at a certain point).

This game on Immortal small continents, I'm germany and I had Incas on my border, on paper their army was twice the size of mine, in reality I entered their territory and faced extremely little opposition, while I had landsknecht spam covering a huge swathe of land. Meanwhile on the other continent my gf is playing a cultural game as polynesia with 3 cities and 5 units to her army and genghis has meanwhile grown to about 20 cities, throughout the game his army rating was the highest and my gfs was the smallest yet though he would denounce her often and spies would report he was heading an army towards her nothing materialized. My gf finally declared war on him because he brought a great general to her border and threatened to build a citadel, so she killed the khan, he brought 4 more khans to the same border and she killed all of them. He never once brought any unit to the border though and just a frigate or two has come near her cities a couple of times. He does have Augustus on the other side of the continent with like 3 tundra cities, and they've been in war the entire game which owing to a very tight mountain pass seems to be obstructing genghis's ability to break through, I never see any damage done to the roman city in the pass. Still, if his army were really as large as stated he should have more than enough for a two-front war. I also think something should be done about mountain passes being so insurmountable for the AI, it gives a very unfair advantage to the human player.

 

[FeiLing]

They usually have their gigantic army spread out all over the world. Probably less than half sits around in their own territory (the rest is probably sitting in boats fog busting all of the ocean).

 

[Gamewizard]

The AI tends to up their military strength by spamming boats and then doing nothing with them.

 

[sesaMe]

interesting to note that the HP of your units and great generals also count to the army strength number

 

[woodshadows]

I do notice on this map in particular, small continents, the ai over-builds their navy, I was also thinking maybe since the AI cities tend to be large the defence ratings on them are contributing. Speaking of genghis' inability to break through at a narrow mountain pass, I noticed today playing another game I automated my scout near a narrow mountain pass and it began going back and forth in an infinite loop every turn, I almost wonder if something similar isn't taking place with genghis, he goes to break through the narrow pass but then turns back, turns forward, turns back, in an infinite loop.

 

[RCM88x]

The AI also seems to have difficulty with upgrading units, especially naval ones. This is probably due to the fact that they are mostly outside their own territory. For example I was recently playing a game in which Sweden was present. Around turn 325 I see a line of 3 or 4 triremes moving down coast. At that time in the game they were well into the industrial era. Quite odd...

I also have to agree with woodshadows, the AI seems to have huge difficulty navigating rough terrain or around Mountains. In yet another game, America was attempting to attack Rome over land. The civs were pretty much on the opposite sides of the Pangaea Continent. They had to navigate through a relatively narrow (about 2-3 tile) and long plot of land in order to reach Rome. It probably took them about 20 turns to move 10 or so units through my territory. It would of taken a human player less than 5. I believe that the AI seems to have trouble when using embarkation, as they constantly have units jump into the water and go right back onto land the next turn.