What did I miss?

[Diadem]

Playing a game on monarch right now, as Ramses II.

I warred Brennus early in the game. He didn't have copper or horses. I hadn't researched iron working yet, so I wasn't sure if he had that. His border cities were all defended by archers though, and my war chariots cut through those like butter.

In his capital he did have a spearman though, and those fancy gallic warriors. I figured he must have iron after all. Anyway, his capital proved too tough a nut to crack with just war chariots, so I made peace and went for construction. I researched iron working too, and it turned out he didn't have iron. So how did he build that spearman and those gallic warriors?

I finally have construction now, and a few catapults, so I declared war again. He has 3 cities left, in them them 1 spearman and 8 archers total (he had moved the gallic warriors out, and they died to my war chariots).

The next turn ... All those archers are suddenly longbowmen.

He had only 20 gold before his turn (according to diplo screen). He has never had a great merchant in this game. How can he suddenly upgrade 8 archers?


I know the AI gets bonusses on monarch. But this downright cheating... What did I miss?

[Solver]

He didn't have 20 gold then. He has 20 gold he was willing to trade. The diplo screen doesn't actually show how much gold the AI has, much of the time. The AI can set a certain sum of gold aside for some reason, and not be willing to trade it. In your situation, Brennus had 20 gold he was willing to trade, and an unknown sum of gold set aside that he used for upgrading.

[LordShiva]

But what about the iron? Was he trading with anyone else?

[Diadem]

But still, he was teching pretty fast to feudalism to get longbowmen. With pretty much only his capital, the rest was toast. How can he do that *and* set aside money?

AIs never keep a lot of money, in my experience. Certainly not enough to upgrade 8 archers. We're talking a lot of cash here.

[Tau Ceti]

AIs also get very cheap unit upgrades. On monarch, they pay only 20% of what the human player does. You can expect pretty much all defensive units to be upgraded within a turn or two after they discover better weapons.

[Diadem]

Hmmmz. If that's the case, then why do they often have outdated units for hundreds of turns? I've seen AIs defend cities with jet fighters, modern armors and longbowmen or spearmen. It's just weird, imho.

Oh well, I got his capital in the end. Bloody high losses, but that brings down the upkeep cost, doesn't it

[Solver]

The upgrades are majorly cheaper for the AI, yes. Has to be that way, it's not capable of determining which units to upgrade specifically.