Moved from another discussion:

I understand the desire to keep AI turns un-boring and non-Windows pop-upy annoying but maybe the AI turns need a little of that.  It's been so long since I've played an old-school strategy game, I'm not sure how any of them have handled AI turns.  There is a secrecy that occurs on the AI's turn(s) that give it an unfair advantage.

Outposts / resources can get destroyed without knowing where it happened, who the culprit was, or where they went/came from.  This is partially due to the vague popup, but a clearer explanation doesn't fix the problem of not knowing how it happened.

More than just razing of outposts.  The AI can move in and out of the fog of war without the player knowing (exacerbated by road travel.)  A large AI army can go from fog of war -> through a very large chunk of the map you have control over -> back into the fog of war on the 'other side' and you would never know.  This can lead to a devastating army popping up in your territory of which you should have been able to see.  I am fairly certain you can't 'sneak' by the AI in this manner, not to mention, who wants to feel the need to pay attention to where the AI's fog of war boundaries are even if you could exploit it.

There needs to be some sort of pause in the movement to see where and when stuff happens.  Kind of like X-com's alien tracking on their turn.  Also Heroes of Might and Magic would show which AI's turn it was, an idea, but not necessary if it is clear from the map.

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Also,the cloth map needs the same visual cues of events that the 3D map does.  I often go to the cloth map on an "end turn" since it's the only way to reliably watch troop movements.  Problem is, if the AI casts a spell, I will hear it...but not see it.  This is fine for FoW hidden activities...but not ones that would be visible on the 3D map.  Too often an enemy army has destroyed a wandering mob and moved on to my territory without me knowing, while it only visibly appears that the wandering mob has left the visible map area.  And the reverse has happened as well.  An enemy (or friendly) army will start on one side of a monster army and by the end of the turn the monsters are gone and the NPC army has moved to the other side.  To me it would appear the NPCs attacked the monsters and moved on, only to later find out that the monsters had moved into the fog on their turn just to pop out in time to lay waste to the outpost I had been sending an army to defend but pulled them back.

The game is missing feedback on what the AI is doing on their turn in your vision.  And there needs to be some sort of equivalence for the cloth map.