How does the AI power up so fast?

The units you have must fight monsters all the time and level up. Fight only battles you will win with hardly any losses. 

Try Umber

I always make my first city a town and choose all town upgrades in it for max cash cause the caravan income benefits from it making it a really good cashmachine, the first 3/3/3 i find is usually my fort for unit construction and since i always pick the enchanters in my custom faction i have 4 essences for +4 init/def/health/fire attack bonuses to all units made in it.

As for power i generally go over the comp and stay there just from my hero stacks and city garrisons, perhaps you aren't expanding after early game ?

I do fight as much as I can early on. I try to keep one full army with my SOV clearing my territory, and at least 2-3 defending units in each city. I usually put my extra champion in the newest city to help it grow faster.

But then comes the enemy with several armies, with 4-6 stacks of troops. I'm not even sure how they afford that. The only limit I have when growing my army is running out of money.

Also, random question, whats the point of border villages? The mercs they spawn cost like 2.2 gold/season, its crazy for how weak those units are. Worse, my last game I captured 2 of them and I couldn't destroy or drop the improvement (not even in city management screen).

The power level seems to be much more influenced by quantity of troops, and not quality, thought I could be wrong.

I think that might be the case as I try to tech early. I used to build towns first, but then usually couldn't get the wonders built in a timely manor.

a simple change that can make the game a bit easier: add some extra AI factions above the recommended number. the recommended number is fairly low, so the AI factions can expand a lot and become powerful. if there are some more AI on a map, they clash sooner and may also start fighting among each other more frequently. 

diplomacy wise, it can be helpful to get trade agreements, economic agreements and non aggression pacts as soon as you meet them (assuming at this stage of the game they are about on par with you - if they are ahead of you, they will demand a lot of gold for the treaties). try to befriend at least the Ai that are on your side (if you are kingdom, make friends with kingdoms and vice versa) - you get a small positive diplo modifier for being on the same alignment, so make use of it before the small modifier gets overshadowed by other modifiers such as "you are weaker than us". i often invest most of my excess gold  in the early / mid game in economic and trade treaties (AI always charge you some 30-40g for the treaties). the nice thing about trade agreements is that each of them gives you 10% gildar bonus, so if you sign some treaties, this can turn your economy from "barely able to sustain my 5 spearmen units" to "field such a large army that AI offer me tribute / pay large sums for a non aggression pact" (at least up to and including hard difficulty, i haven't played expert or higher yet)

@Azumai_

I hadn't considered that. I usually play the larger map size with 3 other random A.I.s (less than the recommended 5). It sounds like that may be my big problem. I"ll try my next game with more A.I.s. It seems like being the strongest causes a snowball effect for the A.I. (since other players sink gold into keeping out of war with you...which just funds your war machine..).

I was under the false assumption that monsters prevented the A.I. from over expanding, but from reading the forums and what I've witnessed in the games, this isn't the case. It seems the monsters just ignore the A.I. to a very large degree, especially when it comes to expanding.

regarding the wonders: even if you don't get them, it's not such a huge loss. 25% extra production and food in your main production center is nice, but the long build time is also a large opportunity cost. in the same timeframe, you could probably build up all the low tech military infrastructure and build up a small but powerful army to clear strong/deadly lairs that block your further expansion (and get some level ups for your main hero in the process) - being able to field a competent army and expand into the regions they guarded (which are often high quality tiles such as 4/3/2 or 3/3/3) can be more valuable than a 25% production/growth boost in a single city.

plus- if you don't build them, someone else will, so you can still conquer them later when you are bigger and more powerful than your neighbor who invested all those production points in a wonder instead of expanding.

it's basically the same logic as it's always been in the civ series - wonders are cool and every player has the urge to build them, but the more experienced you get at the game, the more you realize that they are a trap and that you should really weigh the pros and cons before investing a large portion of your production - the "great axe rider stack of doom" is often a better early wonder than the great mill

I'll need to keep this in mind. They have the aura of being rare and powerful, so I put a little too much effort into unlocking them. I'll get back to this thread in a few days after I try a few games with a refined strategy.

Thanks guys.

The AI isn't necessarily building huge armies to gain high power ratings. Militia counts toward your power rating, the AI spams cities, and there's currently a bug where you'll get way more militia/catapults/guardians/imps in your city than you are supposed to. I recently had a game where Gilden was really high on the power rating for a while, I didn't have his lands scouted so I assumed he was going to be the big player in the game. Eventually he declared war on me because I was so "weak," I took out a couple mostly undefended cities, found one of his big cities, went into battle against like 30 guardian statues/idols, won without loses somehow, his power rating from me hitting that city dropped by 300 points and he was suddenly one of the lower ranked factions. He only had one other city, his capitol. So it was this piss weak faction with inflated ratings due to a bug.

The AI doesn't consider monsters a threat and doesn't factor them into their expansion plans. They push blindly and recklessly into monster territory, but the monsters don't ignore them, sometimes their risk backfires and they lose those new cities, other times they get lucky and the monsters don't attack and wander away. Monsters in general don't hit cities that often, so if you build a city next to a lair there's only a small chance that monster will attack that city. You as a player usually aren't going to take that risk, but the AIs always do. Add to that the militia multiplication bug and even if the monster does hit an AI city there's a good chance they have an abundance of defenders to beat it back.

Are you sure? I've lost cities and games to monsters just wandering into my territory tucked away in the corner of the map. I would scout around and the A.I. would have 15 cities, and monsters just crawling all over. They would also have a bunch of weak unit armies and pioneers wandering around and the monsters don't chase or kill them. It seems I get attacked or chased just being 'near' a monster. I might even have a save left where a dragon is sitting outside an enemy city with 2 weak defenders in it. I captured said city and the dragon promptly raped me (my SOV and a bunch of higher tier units).

There has been more than one occasion where I"m fighting with an A.I. near the edge of my territory, a monster will come in, attack just my troops and not the A.I.s, this has happened more than once and has cost me wars, so much so that I've become very cautious of where I fight a lot so monsters don't ruin the fun.

I almost always play on all normal settings, to be clear.

Don't panic about power too much.  Making gildar should be your main concern.  Once you have a healthy income you can build up your army quickly.

Design cheap units and crank them out from a fortress.  I tend to go for something like these:

Spear Partisan

• Leather Armour
• Spear
• Acrobat
• Underdog

Axe Partisan

• Leather Armour
• Axe
• Wooden Shield
• Acrobat
• Underdog

The +3 Attack against higher-level units works great because these units don't have a lot of Defence so they have a high mortality rate and usually stay at a lower level than the enemies you will fight early on.  If they do somehow get to a high level, they have more hitpoints and more Dodge (from Acrobat trait) so they're useful for filling out the ranks of any army, even if they don't get their +3 Attack very regularly any more.

If your Fortress has a good Production rate you may find that these units pop out very quickly (depending on game setup).  Their wages are about 1.2 gildar per turn.

Don't be too bothered about the AI, unless you know you can take them in a fight.  Focus on clearing monster lairs and getting one of your champions (or your sovereign) levelled up so they can be useful.  Clearing lairs means the monsters never spawn again, which means the earlier you do them the less chance of them spitting out a really difficult group of monsters that will wipe the floor with your current troops.

In LH, when you've researched Cooperation, you can upgrade your 3-man groups to four men (for a price, naturally).  So if you have the money you would be crazy not to go for it early on if you can, one of the reasons the AI power level spikes is because they do these upgrades and instantly have more powerful units and armies.

Also don't forget to sell all of your wolf pelts, silk, bear skins and other monster loot to help boost your early economy.  

Selling magic items that don't fit your hero due to level limits or personal taste can also help.

The AI is still spamming 0 population cities, as well, so that can make them feel more aggressive towards you, as well.

I generally try to get the Great Mill researched as production boosts per material are always helpful, but you can keep it in your queue without building it until you are ready as a cheesy denial tactic.  The AI can't build it if it is in one of your cities' building queue.  The other wonders aren't as interesting to me.

Also I like defensive, lucky, master scouts, enchanters and uneducated with Amarian or Krax blood with a Hardy Beastlord or Summoner sov to let me build cheaper (or mana-based) armies.  Spears and shields (especially with shield bash, now) are a great early army that will only improve with experience.

I am sure. If you turn up monster density and world difficulty you will occasionally even see AIs destroyed by monsters, and wandering around the map you will see dead-end roads all over that used to be cities, razed by monsters. If you go further and increase monster density even more in the game files then monsters will just annihilate every AI rather quickly, you can win the game just by staying alive long enough. They are most definitely not ignored by or immune to monsters.

The AI gets absurd production, research and gold bonuses on higher difficulty levels; however, they mostly use these bonuses to make terrible troops which they crash against each other.

It's quite rare that the AI will make units from a heavily-enchanted fortress, and they consistently undervalue initiative.  This is how you kill them.  A troop of warg-mounted archers with Heart of Fire and Aura of Grace on the city that spawned them will eat through QUITE a lot of enemy troops.

To keep up with the AI I generally have the following strategy:

1. Run Enchanters

2. Get a town with 3 essence.

3. Build Scrying pool.

4. Research Weapons.

5. Make Full Leather armored units with the Sindarin staff out of the fortress, with at least heart of fire and aura of grace.  Earth and Life enchants are also really good (if, for example, you've got Decalon).

6. Destroy scrillions of superior troops.

Another key tactic is to trade your research to the AI for Gildar; you get a lot more research in the long run by staying at None taxation for longer (building up research buildings first) and trading to the AI for gold than by trading research for research.

Quendar based factions are great since slaves are super cheap and don't cost maintenance.  The slave militia unit frequently can be built in 1 turn.  You can just spam huge groups of them and if they all die, so what?  It took as much time to build a whole group as it would take to build 1 normal unit. 

Here's a decent build.  If you think you know of anything better, i'd like to know. 

Enchanters, quick, master scouts, legacy of serrane, rebels

Sovereign:  Air disciple, fire disciple, brilliant, clumsy, i forgot the profession (probably warlock). 

Ditch the start weapon for a dagger that has +3 initiative, you only want the initiative bonus.  Pick mage, get fire tier 3, get the -1 casting time trait.

First champion goes mage as well, get the undead horde spell.  Get first champ a +2 or 3 initiative dagger if you can. 

Spam slave militia, until you can put a guy on a horse, then go for archery and put an archer on a horse.  Train enough normal units to fill out the sovereigns army.  Spam slave horse-archers all the time. 

Basically your 2 main heroes and your non-slave horse based units go in one group.  You can split the 2 heroes if you like.  Slave H-archers are for defense or random other heroes.  Watch your mana or you'll run out. 

Or just make a custom sovereign for any faction and pick the warlord profession. 

Lot of great advices in this thread, thank you.

Apparently in LH I suck big time on game start.

Well, swarming means that you really need numbers in your army.  And that's exactly what you don't have early on, unless you can squeeze some Militia or Spearmen in there.

Even then, casualties or even just injuries due to swarming mean you will need reinforcements often.

On the plus side, if you can weather the initial assault you can swarm with your own troops and annihilate enemies that would otherwise crush you.

Tell me how I can teach my AI to power up please

In my last "Hard" game I have a power rating of about 400 and the next AI has 100, I started building units very late but "recruited" a cave bear

very early and got 4 other units via quests.

Strange thing that Power rating....

I think it depends on the surroundings, when you get early units you can split your "Quest-and collect"-Teams resulting in even more stuff, fame

and Power rating...

Do you relaod rewards (stuff)? I think THIS is the secret for BIG success.

Build more cities. Everything is a function of city count. 

As a side note:

Don't play on small map, "ravaged" terrain,  there are few city spots.

I agree with Sanati. My games pretty much echoed the OP's, until I turned up monster density. It seems to be the ticket, AI birth control with a click. You may need to adjust the difficulty levels of other stuff, as this makes for a dramatic but refreshing change IMHO. Plus it fits better with the games lore, how monsters and wildlands have taken over the world, and your civilzation is trying to take it back and all.

There is defienitly some sort of favour for the AI when it comes to monsters. A lair will get spooked by the AI, and the monsters come into my territory. But with high density, and the AI's spook so many lairs, even though the aggro chance is lower for AI's, it increases the chance that the monsters will attack them.  

It gets more obvious the longer the game goes on I find, as monsters get more dangerous. But its refreshing to see the AI pay for its pioneer spam. My current game is very interesting, as I'm watching two factions that seem to be paying a high price for spooking a crapload of lairs.  There is so many monsters in the core of thier empires, you can't move 2 hexs without bumping into something thats ugly and pissed. Clear the the area out first, then settle, or pay the cost. Muhahahah, I loves it.

If you are not Quendar, and need cheap, quick-to-produce units, try this:

Go into design units, edit the scout. Remove the scout trait, whatever it is called. You'll have a unit with just the "weak" trait, and two-handed pole (which has no labor cost). Save the unit, call it "Peasant" or "Goons," whatever.

This unit can be built in usually 2-4 turns, and requires almost no wage (.2 I think). Use it to swell your armies to full strength, relying on swarm bonuses to kill things. They'll die frequently, but they are easily rebuilt.

This will swell your faction power, and  help your heroes to start leveling. 

This. Warlord will make your economic limitations on building an army go away. I use custom sovereigns with this trait when I play on ridiculous.