Turns 92-99

Turn 92: New Pariden: school->granary.  Tenfell: bell tower->grocer.  New Serrane: mason->mill.
  Verga follows the pioneer meant to settle the patch which Gilden keeps trying to colonize.
  Kitty rejoins Procipinee, who is riding to intercept the harridan, which I Tremor again.
  Some Kraxis pioneers are approaching a fertile patch West of Ahilga. I erect an arcane monolith near them, to prevent them from settling in the next few turns, and rush a pioneer of my own in Ahilga.

Turn 93: The pioneers settle Clover on a 2/4/2 tile West of Ahilga. I cast "Enchanted hammers" and "Inspiration", rush a logging camp and start  developing a nearby clay quarry..
  Procipinee doesn't quite reach the harridan, so I have to Tremor it again.
  Verga ends the turn next to a darkling lair and two darkling armies.

Turn 94: I settle Stonecastle on a 3/3/2 tile near the area where Gilden pioneers keep entering my territory. I cast "Enchanted hammers" and "Inspiration", and start a logging camp.
  Alisa goes exploring toward Kraxis on her own, and finds a pair of leather vambraces.
  Leadanna joins Procipinee's army for the fight with the Harridan.  Procipinee gets a venom sack, and "Affinity". Leadanna gets "Administrator I".
  Verga kills a bunch of darklings, loots a fireball scroll, kills another bunch of darklings, then goes off chasing some more darklings.

Turn 95: Contact with Tarth. Gilden builds the Treasury Vault. Hagudst: study->school.
  Leadanna goes back to governing Ahilga.  
  Verga kills some darklings and gets "Potential I".
  Procipinee loots a quest map, follows it, and after answering a riddle, receives the druss blade, which she is unlikely to ever be able to wield.
  Alisa kills two groups of darklings, loots a belt of precognition, and sells her loot.  With the money, I rush the grocer in Tenfell, and start upgrading a monlith to help bring Stonecastle into my dominion. I also rush the logging camp in Stonecastle, and start a pier.

  Alisa spots an army of skaths and a river slag walking around under Kraxis dominion.  After the game, I will check to see whether they have behaved as aggressively as the umberdroth and the others who hounded me.

Turn 96: Karavox extradites Alisa. Ahilga: town hall->scrying pool.  Clover: clay quarry->scrying pool.  An army of darklings wanders in from the North and destroys one of my crystal quarries.
  Procipinee kills some bears and loots a pair of leather boots.
  Alisa decides to take a better look at a Tarth city, and encounters some Altar scouts nearby.  I sign a technology exhange treaty with them, and while doing so learn that their research is only slightly lower than mine. I'm impressed.

Turn 97. Raven's Heart finally finishes the Great Mill. New Serrane becomes a fortress. Blackstead: mill->apothecary.
  Verga finds a lost library.
  Alisa kills a troll and some darklings.
  Procipinee destroys a great wolf's army, and finds a weathered shield.

Turn 98: "Guilds"->"Literacy". Altar extradites Alisa.
  Procipinee kills a lot of wolves, gets "Apprentice swordsman", and yet another weathered shield.
  Verga destroys two air shrill armies, and loots a rune tablet, that can be best used by Alisa.
  Alisa finds a 15 experience book that she saves for Procipinee, and a tear of Cyndrum that she starts using.
  I rush the bell tower in Alhain-Al-Assan and start a cleric.

Turn 99: Alisa gets evicted again. Procipinee gets attacked by an army of air shrills. New Pariden: granary->iron mine. Tenfell: high tower->mill. New Serrane: mill->forge. Timbraikat: town hall->scrying pool. Stonecastle: pier->workshop.  Clover: scrying pool->workshop. I cast "Oppression" on Clover.
  Procipinee kills two more air shrill armies, gets "Trainer II", and loots an ice warg cloak.
  Alisa kills a bear and its cub, gets "Potential III" and loots an adept robe that should go to Procipinee.

  I notice that Gilden's flow of pioneers, which for at least twenty turns had required my attention has ceased.  Right as I settled Stonecastle, no less. If I had any doubts that the AI sees the whole map, I just lost them.

 Also, this log is becoming a pain to keep.  I may just declare data gathering complete, go back to saves and start looking at the AIs.  I'll see how I feel tomorrow.

This is all very interesting - I thought challenging was supposed to be a level playing field but this clearly isn't the case. Great stuff here Tuidjy

I wonder if anyone knows exactly what bonuses/handicaps the AI gets on different settings. In the Civ games it's possible to look up exactly what these stats are - are there any details on this for FE?

Really nice after action review write up Tuidjy. From the dozens of games I have played it looks like you had an above average game. The map was really nice to you for city placement spots. The AI were actually spread out fairly decent. None of your AI died off on like turn six. All the AI were connected vis land, no overseas AI players.

I learned a few builds back during beta that the higher difficulty settings got a lot harder than the previous EWOM. I actually hard to go down towards normal because of the huge difference. We were warned this would happen.

I do not care what game you play, when you pick a harder AI or difficulty the AIs "cheats" by getting bonuses the players do not. This has always been the way it was done.

The big thing that reflects the difficulty most is the power ratings, if you make contact with the AI. You really need to manage your power rating and keep it close to theirs or you will be at war with multiple AIs very quickly, whether they are your faction or not. The AI gets to inflate their power rating with pioneer units, which is lame. They are a useless non-combat unit and should not have a power value. The AI spams pioners (which we all hate) and it inflates his rating over yours and bam you are at war.

Something that would be nice would be some sort of feature that required a "leader unit" for a army to perform attacks. Sure the army can roam around without a leader but only participate in defense battles. Simply because having six waves of units "leaderless units" attack bypasses the whole idea of having an army size of 5-9 units. This is how the AI cheats and makes the higher difficulty hard to play or so repetative it becomes boring. Of course the AI would still kinda cheat at this because they hire or kill every champion they come across. However if you at least drove off his champions it would give you a break until they recovered from their defeat.

Even with really nice equipped and leveled units you will eventually drown by wave after wave of AI "leaderless" armies. You manage to survive one turn having your city assaulted three or five times but your units are so badly hurt it does not survive the next three or five waves the following turn. If you are surviving the waves the game becomes very boring and repetative simply because you HAVE to fight it tactically to win, using auto results ends up losing units or battles you could have avoided playing tactically.

Technology is the other big thing the AI seems to cheat with. I had one game I rushed my technology to have five man squads. The AI shows up with a seven man squads. I actually saw the AI reinforce his squads one game. The army had three man squads and then the following turn those turned into five man squads. Seemed really fishy at the time the AI was able to upgrade about a dozen units in a single turn. Especially when I have had multiple times where it did not allow me to upgrade my units the same way.

As for the difficulty, it should be harder on higher levels period. If I want to play a harder level for a CHALLENGE then I want the possibility of getting my ass kicked VERY possible. If on a higher difficulty I still have almsot 100% chance to win then I may as well play easy mode instead.

I think someone said it best in this thread, its a matter of pride for the having to pick an easier difficulty. If pride is that much of an issue then change the name of the difficulty levels. The highest being like impossible, overwhelming, or suicidal. That way when people choose that difficulty they can not come back complaining it was too hard.

I would rather see a difficulty that is really hard to play then being able to consistantly beat the game on the hardest difficulty. Simple because when you can constantly beat the game on the hardest difficulty the game becomes a dust collector. Or in the case of the digital download age, a waste of hard drive space.

This is besides the point of the topic, but thanks for clarifying, you should make a post about it!

I am still considering making a helping guide for new players, but it would be easier if I had a big list of "new player questions" (I should have kept track of all the questions, I know)..

Thanks again mr T for this post (thats you Tuidjy)
  for you

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I have been playing Challenging (World+AI) with the latest versions.  On my 1.00 game, which I am prolonging to get the 10,000 population achievement, I have a custom kingdom with The Decalon, Enchanters and Master Scouts and the Weakness to Magic, Temperate map, high heroes, high quests, high resources and magic and high random events.  My Sov is an adventurer with no magic traits, I just Steal Spirit (but you are reliant early on on the magic classes you get from heroes).  He has Discipline, Brilliant, Hardy (no poison effects, but still gets affected by Acid, not sure if that's intentional), Wealthy, Procipinee's Crown and the Staff of Souls, plus the Weakness to Magic.  My kingdom is Altar-based so my units and Sov level-up quickly, and I get Champions without having to use a trait point (all Altar-based Custom Sovs get it, like Magnar gets slaves and Trogs get Juggernauts).

Also, in this game I was lucky to get a square bordered by three river tiles, a shard and horses, making it 4/4/2.

I'm finding this to be the case as well.  It's very map dependent for me.  If I get a good spot and can expand quickly, I can build up momentum and win. But if there's a dragon or strong monsters anywhere near me, that really slows me down and I fall behind.

New EXE update:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8051911/FE-103012.zip