I see this too, usually it's my allies, but sometimes also other factions that I am good friends with, where they like me, but not necessarily have military access deal with. I haven't seen it with factions that dont like me, which I find interesting, which leads me to suspect they are not there with some hidden wish to conquer me, but possibly to help defend... or attack my enemies, but get stuck due to pathing... or something. The reason must be something obscure with the internal unmoddable AI decisions; something that we most likely will never really uncover and probably no one will ever solve.

this issue is even worse when playing the Seleucids. Huge stacks just wander across your lands, with no way to get rid of them, causing loads of food shortages and general pain. My theory is the AI seeks to reduce its own food burden by effectively taking your food, but I can't be sure. Either way it makes the Seleucids basically unplayable, unless you're a mad man!

DoktorFar i think it might be what i mentioned; you have land that they're programmed to desire and attack you for, however they're high in relationship with you, however again theyre coded as "reliable" so they can't betray you. almost like they want to kill you so bad, but don't want to besmirch their honor

Zaxdabomb if that were the case, it means the AI understands food logistics, and is purposely eating yours and hurting you, intentionally harming you. now, i wouldn't mind that if it were intentional design and it could punish the AI's diplomacy, but its likely unintentional and meta-gaming the player into a hole by exploiting

Originally posted by Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen:

DoktorFar i think it might be what i mentioned; you have land that they're programmed to desire and attack you for, however they're high in relationship with you, however again theyre coded as "reliable" so they can't betray you. almost like they want to kill you so bad, but don't want to besmirch their honor

You could certainly be right I wont reject this thought. I have usually only seen it from the perspective of my allies and good friends, but that doesnt mean it couldnt still be the underlying cause. As Rome I tend to make friends of everyone I can except Epirois and Carthage, and a few other smaller factions that were already enemies of my desired friends. So near Rome I would have armies hanging out from Venice (usually my defensive ally), Dalmatae, Massalia etc, and Athens for example tend to later on sending some fleet(s) to Sicily. So when I take Sicily some of them move their armies down there to loiter. I tend to pull all my friends into war against Carthage, and indeed that is the reason we are so good friends because we have all that enemy in common, so having their armies standing around in italy and sicily isn't all that bad, whether the actual underlying reason may actually have been that they secretly wanted to take my cities ;D. As long as it's no more than a couple in each region, because more than that and supplies can become a problem for my own armies. Although usually a grain pit somewhere will take care of that issue with the +3 supply lines.