Does the stupidity of the AI know no bounds?

I might be able to understand the unwillingness of the AI to admit defeat in the face of overwhelming odds, it happens, people would rather die than submit to another. But this is just ridiculous...

New Byz campaign. I take the Turkish capital Iconium and the Sultan falls. 2 Turns later, march to within 1 square of Caesarea, their new capital. Its defended by 2 peasant archers and the new Sultan. I have small army (General, 2 spears, 2 Trbz and 2 Arm. archers, 1 HA). So now an at-war army is sitting 1 square outside their capital and only remaining family member - they should build more units and prepare for a siege right? They even have a 4 unit army (can't see what it is) within marching distance. They have the money and armies within reach to defend with 8-9 units, but instead they build no units and move their archers out of the city and let me massacre them while their lone Sultan comes in as reinforcement from the castle. Needless to say he was killed and the Turkish empire collapsed. Now it is just me and the Egyptians and a dozen rebel provinces. :hmg:

At least the peasants stayed in reinforcement distance. I've sacked cities with full stacks sitting 2 squares away waiting out the siege. For example I sat in siege of Rome with 3 units of cavalry waiting for reinforcements for 4 turns with a full Papal stack right across the bridge from me, just hanging out. After my reinforcements arrived I sacked the city, killed the Pope, and that stack never moved.

So, yeah, it's that stupid.

:egypt:

It seems to be a huge bug to me that the AI routinely moves its large armies out of the cities, leaving them defended by a lone general or less, even when the threat of siege is imminent and visible. I'm sure its been mentioned in the bug thread but it just really got to me in this case. At least it gives me a reason to build field armies (HA, archers, cav) instead of siege armies (inf, inf and more inf) during the early game. Especially playing as Byz its nice to have a reason to build Vardaratoi. :laugh4: I still can't get over those guys, Uber missile stat and can take down Mailed Knights in HtH when it gets ugly, gotta love it. I have 5 Vards and 5 Byz Cav led by 9* Emperor Alexius on the way to Italy to reclaim the Apennine for the Empire. A half-stack of militia led by 2* Gen is following to mop up the cities. Also, a fleet with 6 Trebizonds on board is on the way, just defeated a Venetian navy so it should be smooth sailing. I cannot stress enough the usefulness of long range archers during siege battles against low level walls (less than stone). 80% kills before I even set the rams to their targets. General charges through the breach to take care of the rest:laugh4: