Things I noticed the AI is doing wrong.

I am playing on hard difficulty, with a death based buffed melee sov, and I had a pretty good start.

1) Kraxis doesn't clean the area well enough. Even when he does clear a camp, it takes him time to take it. I saw him clear a camp, then wait a turn, letting me take it instead. Note: I am not sure if he that is intended, but he got more level picks than a PC sov.

2) I am not entirely sure how, but Kraxis sov got the Merchant trait. Why would he pick it if he goes fighting with him? Also, how comes he got both path of the warrior and of the assassin?

3) Relias uses a weak 1handed weapon and some armor, and has a champion stands in city with a shield. Why won't he take the shield from him?

4) Relias got the Merchant perk, too. He also got improved blunt weapon while using the most basic sword.

*Note: It seems I have it too, probably from a scroll that says it gives +1 gilder. This is worth checking, though.

5) After I declared war and stamping on his doorstep, he decides to upgrade that air shrine.. instead of building a unit. Destroying the shrine only made him rebuild it, when I am standing on it.

6) The Relias didn't bother to build a workshop, so the city didn't produce much.

7) Relias is building militias against me. The hell, after a hundred turn, he doesn't even have spearmen?

8) I walked away a bit from his city. Relias went out of the city, cast a familier, and didn't go back inside. I could've caught him alone out of the city and killed him.

It seems as if the AI does only one thing per turn- cast a spell or move or attack, instead of using everything.

9) Relias failed to inspect my units, and cast protection from fire. Why would he do that when I don't have any fire?

10) I took over a conclave with no buildings in it. At all.

11) My stacks just razed a monument when I wanted to capture the outpost controlling it...

12) Relias created a Shieldman, what seem to be a henchman with +defense to the stack, using a shield. He refuses to buy a shield from the shop, though.

13) The AI seem to base his military strength on the magic school, most of all on the mages. I seem to have stuck him by waging an early war, and him not having enough crystal mines to build them.

14) After I got an item causing some fire damage, Relias decided he must protect himself from the cold. This left him without mana to cast guardian wind...

15) What happens when a creature which is immune to criticals has a debuff which makes him receive crits...? He gets crit, it seems.

16) Kraxis has the tech to produce some pretty good items. Too bad he decides, like Relias, not to buy anything.

17) Kraxis is smarter than Relias- casting obscuring fog first, and protection from fire later (against my 3 fire damage amulet)

18) The AI is still unable to counter-spell, it seems.

19) I have just stomped nearly all of Kraxis cities and armies, but he refuses to sign peace, but agrees to surrender.

20) At the time of surrender, Kraxis sov is level 5. I was 6 (nearly 7) when I waged war on Relias.

21) After checking what Kraxis sov was using, He have some items. Not only some of the accesories he is using are wrong (+3 crit over +3 fire damage), but he has armor that he wasn't using!

22) Resoln has only 4 units slots.

23) Resoln sov, Ceresa (unless it's a champ and I'm mistaken) is level 4.

24) Resoln has built a lot of units. Why didn't he invest in armor too? It seems like he preffers quantity over quality. This is starting to get problematic when he cant put them in the same stack, and forces him to send them in waves, bringing a high amount of casualties. An option is to give the mages some extra boost with rings and amulets.

Thats it for now! Hope this will help improve the AI

The game was beaten in 42 years, by my sov, roaming alone. At times he had a sand golem and two archers that joined him, after they fell he roamed alone, beating one of the longer quests which required him to slay 5 red dragons (he did it alone) he roamed with an ashwake dragon for a bit, till it died and he conquered Resoln.

In most of the game, my cities stood idle. The sov was strong enough to beat everything.

I believe that in Expert the situation would've been similar.

In Ridiculous the NPCs are not bound in any way by resources, letting them spam armies of mages very early. Due to armor being ineffective, they can swarm me in waves, till I die.