Way to make AI build bigger armies?

[Trigan Emperor]

Is there a way through modding to make the AI build bigger armies?

I frequently find that I have the strongest Military Strength score among the civs, even while not being militaristic or building an army for a war, and while having an obsolescent military from a couple of eras prior.

 

[Wolfdog]

The AI's use of military is really terrible in Civ 6 and seems to have been low priority for Firaxis. The armies are always way out of date because the AI has trouble acquiring strategic resources and the newer the unit the higher the maintenance cost. Another problem is there is so many things to build and the game seems to put low priority on building units. Also the warmonger penalty is not realistic and way to harsh especially in the earlier eras that the game tries to force you to find other ways of winning.

To answer your question I have found that if you reduce the maintenance cost of units by half or more they do tend to build more units. There should be a mod that can do that otherwise you can make your own mod and use sql to update all the unit maintenance costs. Here is what I use but you can change the value to whatever you like. You will also need a mod that reduces warmongering penalties and there are quite a few on Steam.

UPDATE Units SET Maintenance=Maintenance*0.66;

 

[Trigan Emperor]

The AI's use of military is really terrible in Civ 6 and seems to have been low priority for Firaxis. The armies are always way out of date because the AI has trouble acquiring strategic resources and the newer the unit the higher the maintenance cost. Another problem is there is so many things to build and the game seems to put low priority on building units. Also the warmonger penalty is not realistic and way to harsh especially in the earlier eras that the game tries to force you to find other ways of winning.

The AI also seem to build too many Support units, like Medics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1-0-0-341-ai-builds-too-many-medics.654131/

To answer your question I have found that if you reduce the maintenance cost of units by half or more they do tend to build more units. There should be a mod that can do that otherwise you can make your own mod and use sql to update all the unit maintenance costs. Here is what I use but you can change the value to whatever you like. You will also need a mod that reduces warmongering penalties and there are quite a few on Steam.

UPDATE Units SET Maintenance=Maintenance*0.66;

Do the modified Maintenance costs affect everyone, human player and AI alike? Thanks for the code. I don't know how to use it yet, so I should find out how to make a mod.

On the subject of trying to make warfare with the AI better, I am thinking, if it's possible, to increase AI Combat Bonus, without it affecting Religious Combat: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...t-bonus-from-ai-military-combat-bonus.654136/

I think it makes sense to make AI units much tougher to inflict damage upon, as well as more powerful in their attacks, in order to try and level the playing field/battlefield.

 

[Wolfdog]

Yes it will affect all units both AI and human. If you have other mods that add units you will need to set the load order so this code runs after those units have been added to the units database.

That would defiantly help to make the AI better but I would probably not use it in conjunction with increasing the amount of AI units or you will get overwhelmed I think.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

If you have used these modifications in play, have you noticed any increase in civs capturing other civs' cities? Hypothetically, if an AI had more units, they would be even more powerful against a civ that had, for example, just lost most of its army in a war.

Also, why do you recommend using a mod that reduces warmongering penalties if modifying unit Maintenance costs?

 

[Infixo]

AiFavoredItems PSEUDOYIELD_STANDING_ARMY_NUMBER and PSEUDOYIELD_STANDING_ARMY_VALUE control how AI evaluates the size of its army. If you want to be more precise, then you need to use UnitPromotionClasses system or even Units.
You can read on how AiFavoredItems work here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/real-strategy-ai.640452/#post-15324159

 

[Trigan Emperor]

AiFavoredItems PSEUDOYIELD_STANDING_ARMY_NUMBER and PSEUDOYIELD_STANDING_ARMY_VALUE control how AI evaluates the size of its army. If you want to be more precise, then you need to use UnitPromotionClasses system or even Units.
You can read on how AiFavoredItems work here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/real-strategy-ai.640452/#post-15324159

Thanks. How does AI civs' Military Strength compare with Real Strategy (AI) mod compared to vanilla?

 

[Infixo]

Thanks. How does AI civs' Military Strength compare with Real Strategy (AI) mod compared to vanilla?

Can't answer. The relation between those params and an actual Military Strength is unknown.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Military strengths in my current game:

Civ A: 893
Civ B: 789
Civ C: 434
Civ D: 452
Civ E: 1176
Civ F: 64
Civ G: 269
Me: 1788 (as peaceable civ)

Admittedly, there are wars going on. Civ E (Mansa Musa) did have a military strength of over 2000, but I destroyed a large part of his military (with no losses of my own).

Previous game:

Civ A: 281
Civ B: 160
Civ C: 559
Civ D: 344
Civ E: 970
Civ F: 250
Civ G: 582
Me: 1034 (as peaceable civ)

Previous game:

Civ A: 604
Civ B: 591
Civ C: 2402
Civ D: 414
Civ E: 3034
Civ F: 825
Civ G: 159
Civ H: 769
Civ I: 354
Me: 3733 (as peaceable civ)

Even when the AI have big armies, they aren't very good at using them to conquer weaker rival civs.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

I wonder what effect there would be on the game if walls' strength and garrison strength were halved. Would the AI conquer more cities?

I've played 174 hours and not noticed any AI civ cities being conquered by other AI civs (although city-states are often conquered).

 

[Infixo]

@Trigan Emperor
1. You are not considered by AIs as “peaceable” Civ when you have the biggest army in the game. Why don’t you try a peaceful game with army smaller than an average?
2. Wars are govern by diplomacy, army size is just a piece of the puzzle. Big army is quite good deterrent, however small army doesn’t equal war. As long as you have good relations with neighbors, they wont attack you.
3. Walls, etc matter only for operations, when the war is already ongoing. I don’t think they matter on a strategic level. Ofc, we will never know without access to the DLL, but i never seen an AI going for a war to get a specific city or a resource, etc. AI starts a war, and then decides on best targets.