I think monsters (stronger ones especially) should protect a certain area, and if disturbed, attack anything it can beat or destroy within it.  It makes sense that a monster has an area it protects and only really gets angry within it.

Makes me think about having that Baldwin guy say "Maddening isn't it ?  "  like he does for the Capital 1 Miles card. 

I can confirm this.  The behavior annoys some--who wants a 500 pound gorilla as your neighbor, when it may stop being docile at any time?--but it does act in just this random way towards both AI and human players.  There are also variations between individual neutrals, some of whom wander more, while others stay very close to their nests.  But they all act impartially to the player and the AI.

If you make one change to the behaviour of the Monsters faction, give each individual Monster (or Lair) an area it protects, and EVERYTHING in that area is likely to be attacked if the monster or lair output has a good chance of winning.  I'd rather that monsters (within their "turf" or maybe can attack cities or units, but not outposts, one square further) always attack outposts, and also take a slight risk in attacking cities or units, then just have a random chance of attacking something next to them like it is currently.

So I suggest:

• Give Monsters and Lairs a patrol radius (the Lair patrol radius would be for every monster produced by that lair).
• The radius would be based on strength of the monster/s, tougher monsters would have a smaller radius, but smallest radius for really powerful monsters would be two or three squares from the starting point.
• Monsters ALWAYS attack anything in that radius that it stands a good chance of defeating, ie. always moves onto outposts, attacks low level cities, champions and units, and the more powerful the monster the stronger the fight it will take on.  Dragons and Slags for example would be likely to take on most low to medium (or high medium) level intruders on their turf.
• When quests or events spawn monsters over an area of the map, each group would be given a relevant patrol radius.
• And when a lair upgrades to more powerful units, it could perhaps keep the same patrol radius for the more powerful units, since the monsters have become bigger and more hungry since they have been left to multiply.
• The patrol radius could be automatically extended every (map-size-customized - and there could even be map start options to change this - probably make it mod-editable too) number of turns, and there could be an option for an automatic extend when a juicy target is close (including a city or outpost) or a "stretch" (moving just a little out of patrol radius to attack a juicy target or town, but would then go back to the current regular patrol radius if nothing else near.)

I like the idea of Monsters and Lairs having a patrol radius they consider their "turf", and have it increasing at points throughout the game to increase the danger, and being balanced by having more powerful monsters or lairs placed starting with a smaller radius.  But radius would never be smaller than two or three squares from the starting point even for the most powerful monsters or lairs.

What do others think of this suggestion?

would be nice for monsters to have a radius. Perhaps there could be some events related to super monsters that try to ravage the world though, that would be cool.

I've watched it do so.  Came upon another faction's city, slag beast just sitting there, sunning itself, when it suddenly decided to march over into the city area and  wreck merry Japanese anime havoc.

I honestly don't have a problem with animal behaviors that can't easily be predicted at any given time, rather along the lines of realworld bears.  I would like to know which animals are more likely to do one thing for a percentage of time (lair defense, hunting, crocheting, etc), but that's probably something we'll need to discover on our own.

Well from another post I now see that these monsters aren't as predatory or aggressive as I thought they should be.