Challenging campaign using the AI

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

The problem is choosing which troops/buildings to build train is half the fun for me

[Joh]

I am a very thorough player, taking plenty of time in the construction/recruitment phases of the game. Unfortunately, this tends to make my games exxxxxtremely long and I usually give up mid-way.

I have started using the auto-manage trick. Now my games go faster and I can concentrate on the actual fighting. The main problem is that now I have no control over anything (I decided to automanage my capital as well). Can anybody explain the difference between the different management types? How can I get my cities to produce priests? Cultural setting? And what about merchants? Income (or something related) setting? Let's continue, diplomats, spies, ships and so on?

Well, these settings do not quite work. My settlements will not produce a single ship, priest, merchant, diplomat or spy, which is surprising since the AI tends to build tons of spies. And yes, it does build quite a bit of sieging equipment which is not that bad at the beginning of the campaign anyway.

However, probably the most annoying thing is the fact that the AI will never ever ever repair buildings. It seems that the fact that you have to put the buildings to repair in the queue PRIOR to any new builds just screws everything up. Trying to accomplish any get-to-know-someone mission is just a mess if you have not spared a princess to serve as a diplomat. And, why my cities have negative growth despite chivalrious governors if I do not set them to "growth policy"?

Just having a go with Russia. Only after 20-25 turns have I started to build any troops, despite having two castles set for military build up. And they focus on siege equipment and missile cavalry bypassing spears and archers.

For sure it is more of a challenge, but it is also extremely frustrating.