Well I have seen guardians get unleashed after being attacked but I'm pretty sue that's a bug. What exactly do you mean by traffic?

Hm might have been stuff attacking the guardians, by traffic I mean units moving on the squares next to the unit, usually is released when they have attacked or is attacked by 1 or 2 units.

Sincerely
~ K

I have to agree witht he origional post.  I like the monsters, the current aggressiveness against player settlements came as an unpleasent surprize but I am pleased that they do add an additional challenge to the game.

I agree however that the defacto truce between AI and monsters needs to go.... and the AI needs to treat monster dens the same as a player does.  (That was one of the coolest features of Gal Civ AI was how the AI's mimiced the players actions. )  

I would also maybe disable the monster wandering at levels below normal. 

Agreed on the first.

I think on levels below normal there should still be wandering monsters, but they should not be as powerful, intelligent or aggressive, just to introduce the "term" around having to defend your borders.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

There are those who want the monsters to be even more powerful and aggressive, others are frustrated by the monsters we already have - especially with the new random events. This isn't simply a question of experience with the game, style of play is also important - the community includes empire builders who will spend most of their game at war, adventurers who enjoy exploring and questing and a few who simply want to putter around in a fantasy world and have fun. The nice thing about the way this game is structured is that all experience levels and styles of play can be accommodated with balance adjustments and those adjustments can be placed under control of the player.

I doubt that we'll ever see "equal opportunity" monsters - it's unlikely the algorithms controlling the AI could deal with them appropriately and the playing field would tilt too far in the other direction.

Occasionally the map generator will deal me a starting location where I have the ability to establish 2 or 3 towns without having to clear a powerful monster, a reasonable selection of resources to supply my kingdom plus some manageable monsters and quests to gain experience and build a useful inventory. These are the games I personally enjoy the most. When dragons start interfering with my plans - I'm ready for them!

I think from my own experiences and from what I'm reading here is the main issue is the AI and monsters ceasefire that is going on.

I had a lair with a fire elemental lord and his army in it. The AI I was at war with actually attacked me from with-in the lair and was defeated - the elemental lord and his army was still there.

This really annoyed me.

I've changed my mind, the dragons are a bit thick.

With this I agree!  LOVE IT.  Set it to dense, in fact lol.

Now, not to invalidate OP concerns, because I am positive s/he's not alone and that is certainly a concern.  But even on dense, I am able to fight my way out and establish my other settlements in decent time. 

1. Depending on the mob and spread, sometimes I pair my sov and first champion together in a group, and other times they are seperate (hopefully with a wolf or sand golem from an item, or a summon, something! though some sovs do fine solo).

2.  I try to scout the best I can, but I just plain commit to a plan at some point.  Have to get the city down, or enough mobs killed to open the land, so I just make a plan and follow it.  Yes, sometimes I should have gone north, I went south, but that is the fun of it.

3.  Hate to say it, but sometimes letting the AI build their early noob cities and just taking them is best.  Usually requires a strong starting position with high production, but it can be done.  So much depends on your starting race.  Like Resoln can summon a wolf right off, then if you have 1, especially 2 magic shards around, you now all of a sudden get 1-2 strong other mobs, even then make a spider after researching early magic.  You can shred with that and the Sov and first champion. 

4.  KILL THOSE SPAWNS!  The longer they stay there, the more they produce.  You can pair up your sov and champ to be pretty safe.  Also, the experience gained from this should raise your heroes high enough to become a focal point of the army, even if you don't go with an army early (and let's face it, that's not a very viable strat yet).

Hope that helps.  Sorry if it doesn't pertain to your specific experience, because I don't know the full details of your 10 games.

Edit:  Yes, I will admit that dragons are a bit dense at times =D  But usually not that aggressive unless you disturb their immediate surroundings.

Control those spawns. They're excellant sources of XP.

And loot.  I never destroy wolf lairs.  Those 9 Glidar per pelt add up!

Hah never thought of that before.  Designing a hunter unit to camp spawns as soon as I finish this post.

Go ahead and try to camp lairs in my mod. You will get eaten.

Sounds like fun

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

The wolves actually scare me now (Hard, dense and Hard world difficulty)....

If you have beastlord as a trait, a wolf lair can be a great source for new troops

MOBs coming from the AI regions and destroying my cities has taken a lot of the fun out of the game for me.  I enjoy the rapid expansion and the race between leveling up my characters and being able to defend my territories.  And I like having the AI being able to rapidly expand (tougher levels) so that it's a big race.  But to then have MOBs from the AI areas ignore their cities and directly target mine is just not fun.  I'm losing my cities because the AI is just plain stupid.  Please give us an option to somehow disable this...  How about an option e.g. Number of squares a Mob will wander from spawn point?  Or give us an option to disable mobs being woken up by the AI players. 

From 0.984 changelog:

Monsters that get freed from their lairs by ZOC no longer wander very fair [sic] into the distance

This needs to be combined with new AI rules, however.  Ones that make the AI think twice about plunking down a city or an outpost in close proximity to a lair.  Otherwise the shorter leash just mutes the problem slightly, in my opinion, without solving it.  Since it leaves the AI behavior intact, with dozens of monsters roaming about everywhere when there are many AI players, on a large map.