Maybe change up the AI scouting so that it leaves scouts at the edge of its influence. Problem solved.  

My above points are pretty much how Germany lost World War 2.  Germany basically stacked their army and marched into Russia.  Russia kept withdrawing further and further into their territory, and the German stack moved with them leaving German cities lightly defended.  Because the stack had moved too far away, the stack couldn't come back and help defend Germany when it was then attacked by England, USA, etc.

The cold russian winter didn't help either, but that probably isn't relevant to the point

I disagree.  The Russian winter is highly relevant.  As is the scorched earth defense that the Soviets used.  They're relevant because they were defenses the Soviets relied upon to defeat the Nazis.  Poor Nazi planning & timing for their campaign cost them victory on the Eastern Front. Better planning and/or execution and the Nazis possibly defeat the Soviets before the rest of the Allies open the Western Front and likely change the outcome of the war.

There are no mechanics in EFE that we know of that replicate this ability to wear down an overwhelming enemy stack of doom.  Sieges, the ability to prolong battles, defensive outposts/fortifications that are relevant on both the strategic and tactical map, and spells that replicate the effects of the Russian winter are just a few of the possibilities to replicate this.  But without them you're only option to deal with stacks of doom in a scenario like the Eastern Front in WWII is to run away and hope you can mobilize a large enough army to counter them.  Every other considering in war does not come into play (based on the systems we know of).  Correct me if I'm wrong and missing something. 

Stacks of doom should be powerful.  They should not be all powerful.

True.  If we could have a spell that damaged units while they were in your territory, this would produce a nice similar effect and a good defense against stacking using the withdrawal and prepare a counter attack approach.

There was little nationhood before the industrial era?  Really? So the French and American revolutions were what, exactly?  Peasant uprisings because they had a shortage of gruel?  Rome rose and fell because some plebes were upset about the amount of bread on their table?  The fall of Rome had nothing to do with an over extended nation-state unable to maintain and protect itself?  These (and others) are examples of national movements within nation-states all before the industrial era.  Napoleon provides a good example too, but it is by no means the only one.  

And I disagree that talking about WWII in unrealistic.  Major warfare between nations (Empires, Kingdoms, whatever) requires national level undertakings.  Any game that claims to be a strategy game has to consider these things (and most do).  WWII is one of the most informative historical examples of both good and bad strategy, as well as the effects of production and logistics on a nation's ability to make war.  The overall technological level of the conflict is irrelevant (as to whether or not its lessons are applicable to a fantasy TBS game).  From a pure strategy & tactics standpoint (not at all meaning to sound flippant about the lives involved) WWII is the holy grail of examples.  WWII clearly shows the importance of: drastically different technological levels between competitors, logistics, morale, diplomacy, major tactical & land considerations, multiple front wars, supply lines, national will to make war, resource availability, sources of production, strategic alliances, clear definition of good vs. evil nations, and ultimate end game weapons race (nukes).  I'm sure I missed some things, but all of these at least show up in one way or another in most TBS games. 

If the Nazis don't qualify as a perfect example of human evil, then I don't know what does.

What comparisons are people making in regards to WWII that don't correlate to the era?  The things I mentioned are all standard elements of warfare, regardless of era.  Their significance changes from conflict to conflict, but they're all there.

What I proposed before for rebellion I still stand behind.  We are looking for ways to blunt the ability to keep SODs together and moving within an enemy's lands, and I think needing to break it up to provide garrisoning is a good one.  My money's on the possibility that FB was able to steamroll because he left every city he took almost completely undefended, and moved his SOD completely intact from one city to the next.  If he had to leave half of it behind for a number of turns each time he took a city to quell the partisans, it largely handles the mobility and recovery aspects of SOD.  SODs work because they're fast (faster than the enemy's ability to organize an effective defense against them) and they essentially do not lose strength in any encounter, so they can move at full strength on to the next conflict.

However, a good mitigator to the end game is, you can buy the love of your city you just good.  For a stack of gold that would make Midas blush, you can instantly quell the rebellion, flip the city, and be able to move on.  It would be a great late game tactic to speed things up when you want to steamroll to finish up an already defeated enemy. 

"If the Nazis don't qualify as a perfect example of human evil, then I don't know what does."

<rant>

Is that what we learned from WWII? In my book the evil side is the one that slaughters millions of innocent people. That puts America at the top of the list. Next would be Russia and after that Germany. Dresden and Hiroshima were much greater travesties than anything the Nazis did. Evil is an empire that puts any goal above human life. America is by far the worst. We were the cowards of WWII, waiting till the last possible moment to attack out enemy at their backside. The Holocaust was bad, a terrible thing, but it pales in comparison to the war. We didn't go to war with Germany because they were killing their people. I wonder if we wouldn't have allied with them if Japan hadn't of bombed us at Pearl Harbor. We had more in common with Germany than England or Russia. Most of the eugenic ideals of the Nazis were garnered from Americans. We are the birthplace of scientific racism. 

</rant>

I wonder how scorched earth could work in FE. You could raze your cities as you retreat so that there is a greater distance between their cities and the front line. I am thinking that most of this depends on the size of map you make. I use gargantuan maps, so this may actually work. Horses are probably going to be more useful in FE if the AI can figure out how to use them. A good Mongol rush is the best offense I always say. Talk about stacks of doom. 

I'll respond to this once and then if you'd like to continue the discussion we should move it to another thread since this discussion is not overly relevant to this thread, except that you made your comments here. 

Even rounding up to the nearest hundred thousand casualties Hiroshima + Nagasaki is about 300,000 dead.  And even using you're awful morally relativistic metric of "In my book the evil side is the one that slaughters millions of innocent people" that means that the US isn't even in the running for WWII.  The Rape of Nanking by the Japanese killed 300,000 alone (not counting the thousands of women raped and left alive nor counting the rest of the Japanese occupation of China).  Obviously the German "Final Solution" is many multiples of those killed by US atomic bombs.  Stalin's purges began in 1936 and killed more people as well. 

As for your "we had more in common with Germany that England" schtick, the Lend-Lease act went into effect in March of 41.  Further, in December of 1940 in a major speech Roosevelt declared that the US would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" by supporting Canada and Britain with whatever munitions they needed.  Clearly we'd committed to supporting the Allies well before Pearl Harbor. 

And as for "we are the birthplace of scientific racism" the commonly accepted father of eugenics is Francis Dalton, an Englishman from the mid-1800s.  It's true that Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Sanger (along with many other leftist icons) pushed Eugenics policies in the US in the early 1900s, but the concept was certainly not born here and nor was it exclusive to here.  There were disgusting examples of the idea throughout the western world in the 1910s and 1920s for Hitler to draw upon.

And all of this leaves out the very obvious and relevant argument about who instigated the war, which faction was the aggressor, which countries were invaded and defending themselves, and which countries would have been happy to not have any war at all.  You also conveniently ignore casualty projections for the invasion of mainland Japan and any of possible discussion about the wartime effect of continued munitions production in Dresden, which was at the heart of the Nazi war-making machine.

You're argument is really nothing more than loathing of the United States lacking historical basis.  Moral relativism is disgusting and has somehow become accepted despite the fact that its existence is one of the very things that leads to conflicts like WW2 to begin with.  Certainly very few things in this world are black and white, but good and evil exist and anyone with an ounce of sense can see that the Nazis are one of humanity's clearest examples of the latter. 

Now, if you'd like to continue this, make a new general thread and I'll happily continue this conversation.  This topic is about AI and has morphed slightly into war mechanics for FE.  Our sidebar is well off base.

True enough. I just wanted to point out the gray. I am getting a little worried about how discontent is handled. If the tax base is the only factor, steamrolling is possible with a good economy. Maybe the 50% of population that is wiped out when you conquer a town represents those that might have revolted. But then will cities lose levels and buildings that are at that level? Kind of a problem if a level 5 city gets to keep all the benefits while losing like 300 people. 

For that matter, how will conquering a different race even work? It was really bothersome in WoM. I usually just razed them and brought in a pioneer.