Slitherine

Hi
I don't have screenshot at the moment
But i just noticed that the romans in my game were fielding a massive amount of troops that is beyond their means

When I switched to control them, I notice that they got 40 free unit upkeep

Is there any decision that could increase your free unit upkeep?

Egyptians got an oasis that give one free upkeep each.

ps. how do you switch to another nation?

Rome only got 4-5 under developed regions which is impossible to maintain 80 units
Even with 40 free upkeep

(And not 40 oasis here)


Ps:
You can switch at settings
On the bottom right button to change nation

https://imgur.com/a/Dwa4d4g

how to explain this situation?

40 turns and their money, manpower just keep increasing ??

and how did they got 40 free unit upkeep?

What difficulty are you on, I'd be wary of what you see as the player of that faction vs what the AI would see due to difficulty mods. I think the player (maybe the AI as well) for examples gets worse resources (including money) relatively at higher levels and has higher upkeep. This means the -ve money and manpower you see may not be as bad for the AI. For example I just used a save game of mine to check the ledger for Carthage and it was showing +1000 money per turn, but when I switch to play it was showing a huge negative. I know the ledger isn't exact, and I haven't even checked how the figures are worked out (they clearly round), there is some discrepancy between what it shows for an AI and what I see as that faction.

Apart from that there are a in game decisions that could affect this.

I regularly use an easily obtained decision to convert excess metal (which I always seem to have) to money or manpower, the AI is probably the same.
There is also slave decisions, if you are gaining slaves fast that can net some extra money (which decisions could then convert to manpower or metal).

Diplomacy of course plays a role, in particular good relations with others can net a ton of money and metal (which decisions can convert to money). In some of my games I find I've been swamped by requests for my provincial units (in return for money or metal).

Your screen shot shows Rome rules by 2 separate parties at each point with no obvious to clue as to when they changed - the first party you show is the better economy one. The 2nd one is the miltary one, but if that only just switched you may not have such a great deficit up to then.

just the standard difficulty

I just regret that I didn't finish him off while I got the chance previously, because I don't want to overextend myself, thinking some other nation will finish rome off, instead he just keep amassing this massive amount of troops, and somehow become untouchables


I'm still wondering about how Rome able to get the free 40 unit upkeep one (is there any decisions that could increase your free unit upkeep?)

and how with only 4 region, Rome able to get 8000 extra gold in just 40 turns and also the manpower as well, even though he is bleeding them out each turn
(selling slaves or converting metal to money still has it's limit)

Building an AI that is intelligent is more difficult than making an AI that is artificial.
So game AI's cheat ...
And even this game, which is not the most complex of games, is orders of magnitude more difficult than GO or Chess when looking at number of combinations.

I know that it's no secret that AI cheat

but if I suddenly decided to switch and play as Rome now,
Will I be able to utilise the 40 free unit upkeep?
or will it dissappear?

I'm just more curious if there is a legit way to increase your free unit upkeep, and how to do it
or is that only a special perks/cheat granted to the AI

40 is surprising ... I have seen 92 for a huge Seleucid or Persia (in DLC) but that's because of the Satraps palaces (one per province). I checked the modifiers in the database, and except for Charismatic (+4) I don't see one that could apply here.

The other possibility is dynamic difficulty, which give bonus to AI depending of the overall superiority of the player, but you don't see to hold a large portion of the map... Although the bonus stops at 30. And 10 (the base) and 30 equals 40.

Check another nation, if it is also past 30, then that's dynamic difficulty. Are you very strong? Stronger than any other nation? How many turns you played? That would be the answer.

I haven't really checked the others though

I played as carthage
Turn 150 at the moment

Got about 70++ regions around italian and west africa area plus abit of spain

leading the legacy
With macedonia and antigonids following close behind

Dynamic difficulty/AI cheat then

Thanks for the follow up
At least the mystery is solved