[.913] Tips and Tricks for the AI Strategic and Tactical

Strategy:

1. Only declare war when you are guarenteed to take a city.
2. Only declare war when the Sov is on the border of the enemy, or otherwise useful place to add to the war effort.
3. If you can keep peace with the other neighbors, have all champions and their armies on the border BEFORE declaring war (if humans can do it... )
4. Decide on a build for each champion.  I should not be seeing a path ofthe mage AND path of the Warrior on ONE champion. 
5. I should NOT be seeing a Sov that started with WARLOCK (+50% spell damage) take Path of the Warrior. They should have Path of the MAGE.
6. ALWAYS take any bonus initiative traits over other traits.
7. Spellcasters should not use -ve initiative weapons unless the team is not generating enough mana.
8. Try to have at least one range (magic or bow) unit with every army.
9. In deciding when to attack monsters on the map, work out what synergy can exploit the monsters' weakness(s).  ie, Ogres are succeptable to fast units blinding them.
10. Mana permitting, pending spell availability, ALWAYS have stoneskin, regeneration, nature's cloak, enchantments on champions and SOV.
11. If mana not permitting, reduce enchantments firstly: stoneskin OFF mages and archers, regen OFF mages and archers, if more enchantment reductions are needed, defense of melee champs vs expected battles vs elemental damage vs number of healing items in melee champs inventory need to be weighed up before reducing any more enchantements.

Tactical:

1. Buff order in ALL cases: Haste, other stuff as needed.
2. Debuff ONLY when damage spells won't kill the enemy BEFORE they get to melee range
3. other stuff as needed = stoneskin (if tact and strategic still stack, and they are not using blunt), blind, slow, curse (for high defense enemies)
4. NEVER use berserk unless the unit that will be melee attacking is low on damage vs defense of the enemy units.
5. ALWAYS walk caster or archers back the maximum distance from the enemy from the first turn.
6. Determine based on attack values and defense values whether it is best for melee units to attack first or second.  Then make sure they move to either within melee range, or just outside melee range.
7. If your range damage to their units (priority of range units over melee) is higher than theirs, move the whole army backward to allow maximum range damage before engaging in melee.
8. Recycle units.  If it is hurt, drop it out of harms way so it can be healed for another battle.  This drastically boosts units' effectiveness in the mid game.
9. NEVER have a unit engage an enemy that a regenerating Champion can solo if its health is less than a single hit from the enemy.
10. If you have a champion healer and lots of mana, use a unit with high def to sit next to the enemy units and have the healer sit back and heal, or if quick enough, move in attack, move out heal.
11. NEVER lose a unit unless it is unavoidable.  Take advantage of the heal spell, and regenerating units with high defense.