My army grows fine for ten turns and then the treasury suddenly collapses

Upkeep is a cost that arrives a turn late, so a recruitment plan can look affordable and still fail. This entry gives your AI a turn-by-turn projection that finds the first turn something cannot be paid, and the size of army your income can carry for good.

Why this works

Buying costs money once, but owning costs money every turn. The check that matters is the first turn when the bill for what you already own meets what you can still afford, and the steady state is just income divided by upkeep.

When not to use it

Skip it if upkeep is paid in a resource that grows with the army, such as food from farms that scale with it. Then simulate the real economy instead of a flat income.

In the full entry

• What to build, step by step
• Starting values and the reason for each
• 3 common mistakes and the fix
• 27 lines of example code with 3 checks that pass
• How your AI shows you that it works

Say this to your AI

Use the Spielerando entry "My army grows fine for ten turns and then the treasury suddenly collapses" (read_entry strategy-upkeep-bankrupts-my-army) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP