1. Do you feel monsters act too randomly?

Yes and No.  Heck, they're monsters.  I don't mind wolves and mites acting randomly, but scary monsters should not act randomly.  They should target and destroy nearby passersby and outposts and cities.
 

2. Do you feel like early game monsters are too powerful?

No.  If I adventure too far out, I run into some nasties... but that is what I would expect of a dangerous world.
 

3. Do you feel like the Faction AI is getting a free pass with monsters?

Yes.  I see too many "scary" monsters ignore AI troops, cities and outposts.

 
4. Do you often lose cities from wandering monsters?

Yes.  And I'm ok with this.  I'm actually glad when it happens.  It should happen.
 

5. Does losing a city cause you to quit playing?

No, but it does piss me off.  It's my own fault.

1. Yes, But unsure how this would be accomplished.

2. No, I like the danger.

3. Yes, I do see AI getting attacked, but seems to me that they do get a free pass too often.

4. No, but it does happen now and then.

5. No, I retreat and regroup.

Thanks guys. The point is to show the devs how many people have problems with the current state so they can decide if it is a priority to fix before release. Interesting viewpoints so far.

1. No, generally I think they're ok.

2. Sometimes, generally not. Haven't played too many games but the last one had a dragon released from its roost by the AI it wandered back and forth for maybe 50 or 100 turns before taking out a city of mine (I had since conquered the area). Other than that no problem. And it was fun, anyways.

3. To some extent, yes. There was a fell dragon wandering in an area between 3 of Relias' cities for at least 50 turns (I could tell because I penetrated into that area once every several turns as the battle lines shifted). When I finally captured the closest one, within 5 turns he waddled in an sacked it. I'm certainly willing to put this down to small number statistics, but it still _felt_ fishy.

4. Only dragons.

5. If I feel like I didn't "deserve" it, I'll reload and shuffle troops around to fight it off. If, e.g., it's a menacing dragon that waited 50 turns to come knocking (see point 2) then I knew the city was living on borrowed time and that's how the dice fell.

1. Do you feel monsters act too randomly?
Yes. I never know how the monster will react to my presence. This is especially jarring in the case of intelligent and/or highly territorial monster.

2. Do you feel like early game monsters are too powerful?
No. The monster distribution seems pretty decent in my games. This has been much worse in previous betas.

3. Do you feel like the Faction AI is getting a free pass with monsters?
Yes. The AI does lose units, cities and outposts to monster, but it feels more like an accident and not intentional. Usually, monster go after me when angered by the AI players.

4. Do you often lose cities from wandering monsters?
No. While I have lost several cities in previous betas, it hasn't happened during beta 5. I still do get attacked, though.

5. Does losing a city cause you to quit playing?
No. I have a pretty high tolerance to frustration.

1. Do you feel monsters act too randomly?

 Some are supposed to. But others shouldn't, especially when "random" translates into "brownian motion".

2. Do you feel like early game monsters are too powerful?

No, it's nice to see monsters that I cannot handle and to have to plan how to deal with them.

3. Do you feel like the Faction AI is getting a free pass with monsters?

 Yes, absolutely.

4. Do you often lose cities from wandering monsters?

 Not lately, but this is because I design my races so that I have some way to deal with it.

5. Does losing a city cause you to quit playing?

Not really... Well, not at once. I usually take revenge first, but the more stupid shit happens, more more likely I am to start a new game (I don't reload)

1. Do you feel monsters act too randomly?  As a general rule, yes.  I don't mind wolves and mites wandering around aimlessly, as they're expected to be stupid and weak.  However, it doesn't make sense for a Fell Dragon to be pushed out of his home by a handful of defenseless settlers, and then wander halfway around the world to raise hell for an empire that had nothing to do with his eviction.  Instead, he should make a nice pioneer souffle and go back to his cave to nap until the next group of settlers foolishly tries to take the fertile soil next to his cave.  This is the kind of behavior that would be expected of a dragon, and having them behave nothing like expected is confusing and makes players believe the AI is somehow cheating.

2. Do you feel like early game monsters are too powerful?  Not really, as long as their behavior is predictable.  I think that there's a pretty good balance between early game monsters that even a solo sovereign can take out and end-game monsters that will destroy you.  The problem is their behavior is too simple, which makes it seem random and unfair to the player.  To use the above example, if I find X'thi'lioth the Fell Dragon ten tiles away from me, my knowledge of how dragons operate says that any city whose zone of control hits his cave is going to die, whether it's my city or the AI's.   However, if I'm understanding Frogboy correctly, monster AI doesn't even know what a city IS, let alone how to make a beeline for one and eat it so it can remain undisturbed.  This makes for extremely counterintuitive monster AI behavior, and makes strong monsters seem even stronger.

3. Do you feel like the Faction AI is getting a free pass with monsters?  Not really.  I think there are still some kinks to be worked out with the simultaneous turns (I did once see a Krax army and a Storm Dragon hanging out on the same tile, but that was the only wonky behavior I've seen thus far), but other than that the AI does seem to have a tougher time with monsters than I do, judging by the number of injuries their champions take before any wars break out.

4. Do you often lose cities from wandering monsters?  Rarely, but when I do it's infuriating.  I've noticed that since .982, wildlands monsters are much more aggressive about leaving their territory, which sucks because I like having lots of wildlands to run around and conquer.  Sometimes it's not a problem; I don't mind seeing a lone shadow warg early game, because I can actually take care of it.  But when a hoarder spider and its army are threatening my only city at turn 13 (yes, this happened), I'm likely to ctrl-N or just quit for a little while.

5. Does losing a city cause you to quit playing?  I just reload to a point where I can prevent that city from being lost.  Usually the most recent autosave is enough for me to put a tremor on the baddy until my champion's army can show up.

1.  Yes.  I hate it.  Many times due to this the initial perpetrator is not harmed/bothered.

2.  No.  Not at all.  There's like a weak zone near start then things get progressively worse/harder.  Till finally you're bounded by some really strong lair monsters,  which can really cause you to stop and think or say bye to your scouts. 

3.  Yes.  Absolutely yes.  I also feel like the AI doesn't give a crap about where it places anything either.   If it bothered to clear out lairs near resources/ settle spots it would help. As mentioned before/elsewhere,  the monster AI may not be getting a bite out of the Faction AI due to simultaneous turns.  This was kind of an Aha! Gotcha! moment for me.  It makes sense if it was/ is happening.   Lastly, in closing I just want to state for the record, in many times, to the average user out there who doesn't play with ctrl-U they way they see it is no matter how they play they are having to deal with Faction AI's messes and Faction AI does not pay the price (usually)  for disturbing lair monsters.

4.  No, not any more.  I will say that yes I did at first, but then I made sure to garrison all my cities with a basic garrison.  I also made and set aside an army to deal with incursions of the minor type.  But anything larger than a skath I typically have to use my best army (usually Sov's ) to clear because stupid mother father AI set off a lair and I have to deal with it. 

5.  If it was a key city, yes.  If it was anything like 4/2/any or 3/2/any I wouldn't cry.  Start losing city with three or better materials then it's tears/rage time.

1. Yes
2. Overall No
3. A little. (somewhere in between, I know they get attacked, but AI cities is getting a free pass).
4. No, not often, but when it happens its way out of my hands...
5. Generally no, but - Losing a KEY city to events out of my hand might make me quit, I will quit a few turns after I see the game as lost (very rarely, but happened once with an event spawning 3 epic level spider stacks near each of my cities, at turn 100 ish.)

Interesting Questions.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I will answer two ways.

1. Vet Lan who's played EWOM and FE for 2 years - I like a challenge, even apparent nutty AI behavior. I'm ok with it.

2. Newb Lan who picks this game up for the first time and gets pwned by some dragon. Rage quit and hammer through my monitor. Wife then yells at me about spending money on a new monitor instead of shoes.

In all seriousness, the perception is the problem, despite assurances from Brad the code is simple and they aren't acting nutty. Just make the appearance "fair" and I think all is well.

 
1. Do you feel monsters act too randomly?

 Yes. I like random as if monsters were predictable, it would be boring. But they should get some "logical" paths, like don't going too far from their lairs.

Another thing is a "wanderer monster", but that should be specific for that kind.

2. Do you feel like early game monsters are too powerful?
Yes. I have no problem with that, just leave the stronger lairs for later, and pray I will not wake them
 

3. Do you feel like the Faction AI is getting a free pass with monsters?
Yes. Although Frogboy says that AI fights with the monsters, I have seen too that of the dragon going straight my city.
 

4. Do you often lose cities from wandering monsters?
No. Not often, only sometimes. The problem is many of us get to expand a lot, but don't pay attention to make defending units, because of the well-known Warfare Tree is so slow and the high production cost for crappy units. Each turn a city is producing, is welcome, although it can be destroyed...But wasting production in useless troops makes nonsense: wasted the troop (they die quick), wasted the production, and wasted the city anyway.
 

5. Does losing a city cause you to quit playing?
No. It's part of the game. In fact, the good game is when you lose cities. It means the game is challenging. I lost 4 cities in .983 to the AI, even trying to load game to prevent, but no way. Of course it makes rage, but that encourages to  play better in the next game.

1) yes but this is mostly caused by the ai free pass, towards player they are 90% ok imo

2)no in fact they are too weak

ai IS getting a free pass, we all checked so many times and its proved i refuse to answer a question when its a fact and cant be in a questionnaire for a poll

4) yes i usually build cities even if i know in N turns they will go down because cities are too op and there is no downside, having reserach and gold for N turns is still better than otherwise

5) only if it cause so much dmg i cant repair, in last builds losing a city isnt so bad you can rebuild nearby