Up the difficulty and stop whining.

I see the same thing and it has nothing to do with difficulty. Sure the AI can beat you on ridiculous using bonuses and cheating but if at the same time it just plays stupidly that's no fun. 

Increasing the difficulty level will give the AI more HP to sovereigns and champions. Given that OP plays on challenging, I would volunteer that there is much room for harder AI's for him to play against. No you won't be able to fool around as much as you can on lower difficulty levels, but that's kinda the point of a hard challenge. You can't expect to play around all relaxed and then have the challenge appear when you get bored from it. (which in my opinion is exactly OP's stated problem)

Back to the whole AI "cheating" part... it needs those bonuses to compete with the current design, so playing on a subpar difficulty for your ability, makes the game exactly as OP stated. I think there even was a post somewhere about types of AI/game design, and the difference between AI who plays to win, and AI's who plays to lose. Trust me, you don't want to play a pure AI that plays to win in this game as you seem to want. It would go something like this: "Hello there, you are human so I will kill you as soon as possible" (maybe even make a fake peace while preparing to backstab), and suddenly every AI on the map gangs up with them to kill you, and is starving you out of exploration and expansion while you are fending off endless stacks of cheap units all over the place. Sounds fun? No?

This is why the whole diplomacy thing exists, even in it's current broken state, and AI bonuses are there to compensate for them not playing by the same rules as you do. You can play however you want to win the game, the AI's primary object is to play to make you have fun not to beat you outright. 

One of the basic problems with AI is that the longer you play, the easier it gets... Until a new version comes and Frogboy has improved it, of course. I have already gotten to the point where I win (with some problems) vs Ridiculous, and where Changelling gets just silly. By the late game, the game is won and it is all just turns over turns of making it happen completely.

But it is true the way war go is a little strange. In my last game (custom faction-all ridiculous, resources sparce, 6 enemies, medium map), my neighbour declared war on me. Our capitals where really just right next to each other (there was even a road joining us); and yet, I did not see any enemy coming until at least 10 turns later. Which of course gave me time to enter in peace with the other ai on the other side of my territory... Hell, if you declare war you should at least have troops arround the borders!

As for the bonuses, there is also de issue that, I suspect, the AI gets fewer random events... Or am I wrong? I still have never seen the AI have any of the free units that are the girl's friends, nor any of the Temples (and those are HUGE bonuses). 

Sure it does. To challenge. Do you mean immersion?

On challenge: On ridiculous and insane, killing an enemy sovereign because they are alone hardly wins you the game, and can cost you mana or even some troops. In some situations it would be downright a risk to engage (you're needed elsewhere), and the enemy sov/champs certainly have the HP to attack your weak/undefended cities and take them. So their hp bonuses mean they can be a threat, even if they can't defeat your main stack alone. And sending in your main stack could leave something else undefended.

It would be better if they took troops with them, but the hp bonus does not need to make them solo-stack worthy. If they can harass you (they can), sovereigns riding solo is not complete suicide.

Immersion: If the AI's bonuses improve challenge, then they improve immersion. Challenge is a big part of game immersion.

Solo enemy sovereigns do not break game immersion entirely. I'd like to see it go, but it is not a major issue holding the game back from being worth playing. At least for me, and presumably not for the reviewers of this game on metacritic.

Re: troll-or-not status, I just suggest this: what motivation leads someone to announce that they will no longer be playing the game, on these forums?

Superb sjaminei, I am downloading and installing right away! 

Cheers,

Laz3456

I'm playing 1.30 and I've definitely seen the enemy sovereign wandering around outside city walls.  It was his last city and I think Warlord Verga had decided to retake an outpost I had taken earlier but apparently abandoned.  Unfortunately for him, I had an army coming for another direction and caught him unawares.  His last city was well protected with troops.   After beating him, I felt good about immobilizing him for the coming fight which would be a big deal and probably not winnable for me due to the defenders in the city.   Rather than face pyrrhic victory or losses, I diplomacied Verga and he surrendered because he said he didn't have a choice.   "You're damn right you didn't have a choice!" I said aloud to his pixelated face.  So then Verga became my immobilized vassal.   So I gained an immobilized unit right next to a wandering monster.  I was rather surprised that his city disappeared and an outpost I hadn't taken disappeared as well from the strategic map.

Also, what you describe as an "obvious" strategy is not that obvious. A passive strategy against a stronger opponent is highly unlikely to be successful. It's dubious that it will be able to win a troop training race; the longer it waits, the worse things may get. At least if the AI tries an attack it can try to change the dynamic. It might have been better to wait for you to attack and then hit you with strategic spells, but attempting to catch you off balance and attack in an area you weren't expecting is a legitimate tactic.

Fundamentally, if you're twice as strong as the AI there's probably not a lot it can do to win a war; so if you want more of a challenge, raise the difficulty.