WTH? Can someone explain how the AI can maintain such a large army FINANCIALLY?

[Mods]

From the sheer amount of pointless buildings I still see whenever I take a CC or a capitol in comparison to any other cities I'd say that's either untrue or it's a fixed percentual value, still making the point that most of an AIs cities are deserted of infrastructure.

nope, most gets destroyed

 

[FeiLing]

Mongolia has an impossible number of military units going into -455 gpt. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOl. -455 gpt. Luckily, I'm friendly with him but STILL. -455 gpt. REALLY? Okay, so if the AI can just basically ignore negative gold per turns, then WHAT IS THE INCENTIVE TO EVEN HAVE POSITIVE GOLD PER TURN?

I noticed that when the diplo screen shows an AI has negative money, when I visit them they suddenly got positive money again.
Maybe it's just an visibility bug, but I say they cheat. Never believed in developers when they're saying their AI doesn't cheat (apart from the known/given bonuses).

PS: Why the heck does a Lighthouse probably have a near 100% chance to not be destroyed? One should be able to sell them specifically from Puppets as they causes a lot of issues (population and cile claiming wise).

 

[Disgustipated]

I need help with my economy in my game. I know it's still early, but it's pretty sad when I can't even support an army of 3 units. It is early like I said, so I don't have trading posts up yet, and my city isn't connected. I rely on barbarian encampments to stay afloat, which leaves my empire undefended. I only have 2 cities because I went for building the national college first. I'm hurting, and would appreciate any help to make more money. I started in Europe and don't have any resources to sell.

 

[vonbach]

WTH? Can someone explain how the AI can maintain such a large army FINANCIALLY?

Thats easy the AI cheats. The civ AI always has.

 

[orangecape]

When anyone captures a city a few things happen. First off all military training, defence and cultural buildings are automatically destroyed. (Barracks, Walls, Monuments) After that all buildings have a chance to be destroyed which depends on the buildings in question. If you conquer a city that had 12 buildings in place you probably end up with 4 or so intact, which is why you get a warped impression of what the AI builds. Use a mod to check out their cities directly and you can see that they build plenty of buildings of all types. This is all very clear from the xml files and isn't cheating - it applies to both sides equally.

When you go below 0 gpt and 0 gold in the treasury you simply start losing science. If you have -50 gpt you lose 50 science from your normal total. The AI has this happen exactly the same as a player. You can see this sometimes with Monty when he builds a bajillion jaguars and can't pay for them - his science actually hits zero and he stops all research. The AI plays with the same rules as the player here too, but the player normally is smart enough to not run massive deficits when out of cash. The AI from the OP is crippling itself with its maintenance costs, not that this helps the OP much.

Lastly if the Ai really does have 26 cities it will trivially be able to make 2-3 units per turn. Even if it is taking heavy combat losses or disbanding 1 unit per turn it isn't going to lose military strength if it goes into pure desperation mode, which the AI does do. You can see their build focuses change dramatically when they are at war if you use mods - they make nothing but units generally. One of the best ways to win economically is to keep all the AIs on a war footing to delay their infrastructure.

 

[FeiLing]

When anyone captures a city a few things happen. First off all military training, defence and cultural buildings are automatically destroyed. (Barracks, Walls, Monuments) After that all buildings have a chance to be destroyed which depends on the buildings in question. If you conquer a city that had 12 buildings in place you probably end up with 4 or so intact, which is why you get a warped impression of what the AI builds.

This is something that also bugs me. Because when I lose a city and then retake it, this happens twice which virtually destroys 99.9% of the buildings (only a lighthouse may survive multiple conquests somehow (or they AI always rush-buys it immediately)).
It would probably be much better if a city wouldn't lose buildings again when it is re-captured (for like the same time/number of turns that a city is in resistance (can't build/produce anything for a few turns) after it is captured).

Maybe even the same rule should apply to the pop. It's also halved twice in such a recapture scenario. The way it currently is basically means you'll throw a game if you happen to lose a city as it is basically like you just settled it after you retook it which is just too much of a drawback.

 

[Simplicity4]

Actually, you lose one unit per turn if you're in negative gold.

Really? Hahaha! Well, there's the exploit right there. If the AI has 26 cities, then they can just pump out TWO units per turn. Perpetually. Negative gold, schmegative gold.