Do monsters just ignore opposing factions outposts/cities?

I had a dragon in my territory once for a long time. It did not attack the nearby city, possibly because i had a dragon in the city?? Then after a very long time, it suddenly ran around that city and was heading right for the next city along which did not have a dragon in it. So i killed it with my dragon before knowing what it was really going to do?

Anyway, the dragon in your game may have been intimidated by the AI city garrisons for some reason, and that is why it did not attack?

Monsters will only venture a certain distance from their lairs, if they are still standing.

(There are apparently other mechanics also involved -- they have their own criteria for their decision making, including some intimidation factors where your cities can scare some of them. But I am not sure if any of those are relevant for dragons.)

Yea, the dragon in my game was originally staying with its lair all the time. Only after my boarder expanded to its lair did it start to move, and only a very small amount of movement for a very long time before suddenly charging toward a less defended city.

My typical experience is that my borders expand and activate the higher level monster that I have been trying to leave alone because he will slaughter me.  The monster wanders around for a good 5 or even 15 turns and then eventually attacks (and insta-razes) my city.  Anyway, they don't attack right away, even the player cities, or at least that is what I have always found on challenging.

I have a much different experience.  Normally when my city grows and it wakes a mob then I usally have to kill it that turn i.e. the moment "There are enemies in your territory" pops I have to kill the mob that turn.  Also I noticed yesterday that a mob wandered 12 squares away from its spawn point.  Right now I have some spiders that are six squares away from it's spawn point.

Did they disable the distance a mob will go from it's spawn point?  They had fixed this (shortened it) at one point and it seems like it's back to a very long range (12 seems to be the max it would go - I hit next turn many times to check).

A hundred different stories like this appears, usually ending up in the dragon going on a munching rampage on the human player.
(Have been watching during some X beta's ago, so I did read these as they popped up)

I would swear to the fact that the AI have some kind of monster-repellent batspray or something, that said, Frogboy have on several occasions swore several blood oaths and done rituals and stuff with daggers swords and camels to convince us the monster AI is actually rather simple and/or dumb, and that we are just seeing the "freak" accidents that happen upon a random roll of the % generator.

I do hope they end up giving us the means to mod the monster AI, that would be fantastic, at least someone could make a reliable evil faction of monsters that always attacks outposts and units, so we wont see this anymore. (or there is no more excuses to go take a good long look at the monster behaviour and figure whats wrong).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Sometimes the behavior is bizarre - attack, wander away, wander back, attack now?  if its on a border that I'm actively expanding I'm ok with it, as I usually have a stack nearby.  If its a "secure" border and I've dumbly expanded my influence too much I try to squash it right away.  Tremor and Freeze are fantastic for letting a stack wander up. 

Most annoying was this past weekend.   My border was next to a neutral civ which I hadn't explored, so still fog of war.  Out of the other civ's fog of war out pops a fell dragon which proceeds to munch my city.  Obviously my city was tastier than the one it had to bypass.    AI releasing mobs that then threatens your stuff is annoying (but kind of ironic at the same time).

Monsters def. attack the AI- the top AI in my current game keeps losing cities, and I'm 90% sure it isn't to any of the other computers.  It's actually kind of annoying, I need there to be at least one strong power out there so I've got someone interesting to fight

Ah i get it now.... when you 'don't' want AI monsters to attack the AI, then they will!

This falls under the category of -Murphy's law it's just the good old random chance knee jerk response to always go against puny humans desires, usually reserved for real life, but games, hey why not!

If you have watched the movie 'final destination', then you will see random chance in action!! but in real life it is usually much more subtle - just enough to make you wonder every so often, but you can never quite put your finger on it. Except for those few 'lucky' people, where random chance smiles on them and they just expect it as if it's all perfectly normal..... pttteewwww (spits on ground).

The only game I've ever played where it was obvious that the AI suffered from monster attacks was Alpha Centauri. It's kind of funny when you get a death notice 8 turns into the game. I consider "abundant wildlife" to be a balancing factor to higher AI settings. I think in Civ 4 the AI also suffered from barb attacks, but I don't remember any civ actually dying from them.

I haven't noticed, say a bunch of assassin demons wiping out any of my allies cities in FE yet, or even attacking them, but maybe the AI is better at taking out the spawn points. I like to farm them for more exp.

since the AI territory is typically dark you mostly do not see attacks.  Sometimes you do, but usually your only clue is resources appearing (when a settlement gets overrun) or sometimes a road to nowhere (if they are not implicit in your map) or some other secondary evidence (like maybe noticing that a temple is now an altar...)

some sort of notification when monsters destroy AI cities would help.  it may just be a perception problem, but since new players still ask this question, more information would help people not get turned off by what they see as unduly unfair.

Well, after my earlier statement I just am playing a game where Altair was destroyed by monsters on around turn 8 or 9. I ctrl-u to see what was going on and I couldn't see Relias anywhere, and just his hero's army sitting two tiles outside the city while a darkling troops closed on the city.

During the beta, "Tuidjy" did a test and found "evidence" that the monsters act differently when you can see them and when you cannot see them.

Edit: https://forums.elementalgame.com/435073/page/6/#3265361

Edit2: It was not during the beta, but during 1.00, and some of his findings have had change notice in the patch notes.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I think, after reading this whole thread, that the developers have to be pretty happy with the monsters AI.

there screwn' with everyone.  even outside of the game. 

I used a quest scroll during the early game, I think it was around turn 40 or so.  Not sure, it was early though and my sov was only around lvl 8 but I got the quest where the bard sings his song and out pops a dragon.  Because I didn't want to waste my 100gildar (110 gildar since you pay 10 for the song,) I told the bard to sing away and then down swooped the dragon next to my city.  I made sure to garrison up my sov and his little play army, fearing, KNOWING that I was doomed and had just cause my demise.  I hit next turn and waited for the dragon to attack my city.  It did nothing but walk around a little.  I hit next turn.  Dragon walked.  I did this for a good 20 turns, (I really had nothing better to do as I only had 3 cities and was still trying to get my feet under me with my infrastructure.)  The dragon actually ended up eventually walking out of my territory and up to, what I learned was, Roselin's territory.  I never saw him again until my army was EPIC and I was traveling wherever I wanted.  He was still in Roselin's territory just hanging out. 

I will agree that the AI is broken for monsters attacking cities and outposts.  Also, I should note I was playing on Challenging/Challenging.

But it's not broken.  It's just very random and, for what it's worth, WAD.

If you up the world difficulty, the monsters will be more aggressive towards your and the other players' improvements.

Monsters will attack the AI,  Not so much with cities or outposts but they will attack units. 

I used that to my advantage in todays game.

On Challenging setting (both AI and overall level)  Yithril managed to build a subtantial lead over me (way better starting position) and the Declared war.  They only had one path of attack and I managed to capture one of thier outposts as early warning and prepared to switch to unit building to defend.

Then I had an idea... there was a deadly Drake pack that had been disturbed/activated just to the south just outside the outpost Area of Control. I rushed a Warden upgrade (I think thats what its' called,, that or constable...I can't remember but its the one that repels monsters)  and then kept a horse unit nearby to keep an eye on things.

worked like a charm...

I saw at least 8 medium to strong Yithril Units attempt to traverse the region, each time the Drake Monster stack made a beeline to the Yithril unit wiping it outit. Basicly it was an impenetrable defense for a good mid portion of the game allowing me to continue to infrastructure build and ignore a much stronger faction until I was ready to take them down. 

made a challenging game and starting position a cakewalk.