A lot of people complain about the AI being shoddy, or being susceptible to certain sort of attack patterns (rushing with a powerful Sov early game, hitting then running back, proper kiting, etc). But they aren't always giving concrete examples.
So I'm just going to be updating this thread with REALLY STUPID things I see the AI do when what to do was VERY obvious.
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- Monsters, Bandits and the AI itself do not attack empty cities.
I just played a game where I ran around with an attack party and would capture cities then leave them COMPLETELY empty. I wanted to see how long it would take until monsters, bandits, or an AI would take it over...
the answer is ... NEVER. I had 5 cities that were all level 3, sitting empty and I was never attacked and pillaged. Now, I did have a very overpowered Sovereign and my Might values may have been screwed up (exempting the AI players, not wanting to pick a fight they would lose for sure). However, that doesn't excuse Bandits and Monsters from attacking me.
I even did this in another game (where I was not overpowered and I was roughly equal in Might rating to the remaining AI players), where the AI had a stack of units with 200 Combat Rating sitting next to an empty city. Earlier that game, when I was actually WEAKER than most of my enemies, I once misclicked and moved my stack OUT of a city where another, large enemy stack was sitting. They ended up attacking my stack with their stack, instead of trying to capture the city and then defending it and getting the HP bonus for it.
- Enemy Soverigns run into Enemy territory
The AI should not send their Sov's out to attack unless they have a might higher might rating. Sovs love to suicide their sovs and lose.
- AI doesn't seem to try to win
I once spent about 200 turns just sitting there saving up 24,000 gold so I could have two Elite Companies of Young Dragons (: Though the AI was VERY VERY weak by this point, he could have still tried to do the Spell of Making as he had enough mana to, and shard access (I let him have a few on purpose to see what he would do). I'm pretty sure he had the research to do it because he hit 80 research a turn at one point (Educated reload bug).
- Enemy Sovs attacks my Sov instead of fleeing when heavily outnumbered
I didn't even know you could flee tactical battles. Once, while attacking a minor faction while their Sov was heavily damaged from a previous fight, the Sov just walked off the map. I was impressed, good AI! In general if the Sov starts at low hp, it'll retreat... the exception is if you have YOUR Sov in that combat as well. If your Sov is in the fight, he will never back up.
