I have several screenshots of various AI enemies that are surrounding (and ignoring) other factions pioneers. They are hostile toward me and my units, but they will often ignore the enemy. What prompted me to go ahead and exit the game and come make this thread was when I approached an Enemy AI champion, and he merged his army with a neutral Plaguestalker party. The Neutral monsters were all significantly buffed by an eclipse random event, so given the fact that there are over 20 enemy units approaching my cities, it would be unpleasant to say the least for me to have to encounter these beefy plaguestalkers and then slog through the dozens of battles I am going to have to fight afterwards.

It is fairly frustrating to me that the enemy AI never seemed to fight any neutral monsters in E:WOM, but in E:FE I actually would occassionally witness an enemy sovereign doing battle with the neutral monsters and doing quests or acquiring loot from locations. In E:FE:LH it seems we've taken a step backwards. I saw Frogboy had mentioned that perhaps later patches from FE didn't make it into the base versions of LH, and given that we're seeing behavior that I personally hadn't witnessed since WOM, it seems that some of this could be addressed by making sure the latest updates for FE were merged with LH if that is possible.

Even if the enemy and the monster AI play nice when they're not visible by my units, it's frankly sort of insulting to see the enemy factions pioneers effectively being escorted by the random mobs. Seeing a plaguestalker group that I personally dislocated from its location by building an outpost near its spawn go and merge with a group of the enemy is taking it to an entirely different level. The AI pioneers should not receive escorts from the neutral monsters, that is a huge AI issue. Even if it is just for appearances sake, the AI should escort their pioneers in much the same way that I have to. The Neutral monsters and the enemy factions should engage in combat, at the very least when I can see it. Not to mention the fact that if the AI isn't actually actively fighting the monsters being generated, where are they acquiring their XP? The answer seemed in the game I was just playing to be nowhere. The biggest baddest AI faction declared war on me and their heroes were a joke and their massive armies were dying to a town defended by the two basic units I started with and a butcherman I acquired along the way. I very much hope this is simply an unintended side effect of multithreading introducing a bug or something, because it makes for frustrating gameplay and slaughters suspension of disbelief.

I can post screenshots or saves if this behavior is somehow unique to my client.