Brazil is embargoed, city states are embargoed, how does Brazil have such a big army?

[CivAddict2013]

Okay here's my situation. Yesterday, I was playing a game where I did a little warmongering. I captured France and Siam's capital with all the wonders. I was the world congress host.

I embargoed Brazil and also embargoed city states.

For most of the game I was able to fight off the other AI's.

It seemed clear for me to win a science victory.

But out of nowhere world DoW. Now, I kind of expected this and I had a pretty decent army.

However, despite embargoing city states and embargoing Brazil, they come at me with a huge army. France and the Shoshone also seemed to have a huge army, despite not having that much money.

With little to no trade routes, how does the AI get so much money for units? Does the negative GPT not affect their military or something?

I would think logically that with little to no money; that would affect the AI's military.

Apparently not.

 

[Chum]

There's another question to be asked here, one that exists WAY before the thread topic.

The real question is, why would you possibly waste WC cycles doing something so petty?

This is the core of your problem, man. You're playing sub-optimally and don't even know it, because you absolutely refuse to engage in any discussion with anyone about it. All you do is make these bizarre complaints about 3rd tier problems without realizing what you're doing to cause the problem in the first place. There are so many more beneficial things you can do with control of the WC than doing something out of spite to the AI that also hinders your progress significantly.

 

[InspCallahan]

Gold is almost entirely irrelevant to the AI. Don't believe me? Check the gold output of any civ in the trade screen in most games, you'll see they barely have a positive amount and yet they can still apparently support a massive army.

 

[CivAddict2013]

Gold is almost entirely irrelevant to the AI. Don't believe me? Check the gold output of any civ in the trade screen in most games, you'll see they barely have a positive amount and yet they can still apparently support a massive army.

But why?

I guess what I'm really trying to ask is... if completely embargoing the AI isn't enough, how can I plunder their military?

It's just strange that the AI is making almost no gold but throws a massive army at me of the latest units.

Not just Brazil, but France, the Shoshone and England too. And they barely have any money.

Defies all logic.

This is King difficulty if that helps.

 

[Moriarte]

City State allies can help sometimes. Ally key CS between yourself and potential adversaries. When they attack - CS will soften up their forces. Then you step in and finish off what's left.

 

[happyturtle]

Check the demographics screen regularly to see where your military stands in comparison to AIs. That will keep you from getting blindsided by a surprise army.

 

[LoneRebel]

Well, of course he has a huge army. It's Pedro II of Brazil, one of the game's greatest warmongers. He's right up there with such bloodthirsty warlords as Harun al-Rashid and Gandhi.

 

[Browd]

By the late game, income from trade routes is a far less important source of gold. Gold generated by cities and city connections will be far more significant, and your embargo does not affect that income.

And I agree with the earlier comment that wasting WC proposals on embargos is what the AI does -- human players should know that there are far better proposals for, in your case, a culture victory.

 

[Strategist83]

CivAddict, gold income from trade routes is just a small part of an empire's total income. It is perfectly possible to finance a large military solely from internal income. Try hovering over your own economic breakdown in one of your games, you'll see.

Even with zero foreign trade routes, an empire could use its cargo ships to boost city sizes with food which racks up city connection trade values.

 

[Chum]

I've run a massive military off doing absolutely nothing but stomping around, pillaging tiles, taking cities, and intimidating city states, all with a GPT deficit. If you do it fast enough, you never run out of gold in any manner that bothers anything, and no trade routes are required.

There are so many gold sources in this game it's pretty amazing. Think outside the box, solutions are everywhere.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Don't forget the honner finishing: late game, it's above 60 -sixty! gold per unit killed.

You can run a -120 gpt deficit with "just" killing 2 units per turn!

 

[Babri]

By the late game, income from trade routes is a far less important source of gold. Gold generated by cities and city connections will be far more significant, and your embargo does not affect that income.

And I agree with the earlier comment that wasting WC proposals on embargos is what the AI does -- human players should know that there are far better proposals for, in your case, a culture victory.

Adding to that, I would say that standing army tax & trade embargoes are more dangerous for smaller empire because their income mainly rely on trade & they need more troops compared to their size. For example an empire of twice of your size wouldn't necessarily need twice the size of your army to protect its borders.

A more easier way to break large armies is to cause happiness problems for them. Banning a luxury isn't an effective way of taking down a giant. A much more powerful approach is to use world ideology + tourism to your advantage which would in turn cause mass revolting in your enemy's land, giving you some time to deal with that guy.

 

[Ryika]

But why?

Because the Ai doesn't have to disband units + it gets production- and gold-bonuses.

I guess what I'm really trying to ask is... if completely embargoing the AI isn't enough, how can I plunder their military?

Easiest way? By killing it. The combat-AI is horrible and you should be able to outtech the AI really early in the game on king-difficulty if you know some basics. Higher-tier units controlled by a good player easily fend off swarm-attacks. You've got the advantages of the thinking brain, the AI gets bonuses to compensate for that. It's asymmetrical design and it has to be - a script-AI just cannot keep up with rational decisionmaking based on experience.

Speaking of decisions: You should decide if you want to accept that design and work on becoming better and understanding how to abuse the AI, or if you want to play on lower difficulties so you don't have to. Complaining about the logic of a system that's not meant to be logical but to make the AIs strong enough to be somewhat challanging won't get you anywhere.

 

[LoneRebel]

You sure do love to embargo civs and embargo city-states, don't you? You've mentioned doing that not only on this thread but on two or three of your previous threads.

If you're actually managing to get those embargoes through, then you probably control the World Congress or are close to controlling it. And instead of those embargoes, you could be, I dunno, getting the World Religion or World Ideology or the World's Fair or something actually helpful. You could even be not embargoing city-states, so that you can send your own trade routes to them instead and maybe fulfill some quests.

 

[Jaeger5]

CivAddict, gold income from trade routes is just a small part of an empire's total income. It is perfectly possible to finance a large military solely from internal income. Try hovering over your own economic breakdown in one of your games, you'll see.

Even with zero foreign trade routes, an empire could use its cargo ships to boost city sizes with food which racks up city connection trade values.

Not to mention Brazil's start in a jungle and brazilwood camps. The strategy sites says Pedro has plenty of gold.

 

[reddishrecue]

I have been in a similar scenario before where I was able to make the ai unit maintenance cost increase tax at the wc. The ai still made more gpt and had more gold than me. The ai also still had more cs allies than me.