If I should point to THE element that still makes EB and RTW look ahistorical - the ONE thing in all the wondrous historical accuracy that convinces you that its still a game and not an actual time capsule - it is THIS: when two factions have each become great powers - let's say Bactria has usurped Pahlava and India and Seleukeia has pacified Asia Minor and the Ptolemies - it is ONLY a matter of time before a devastating war begins - and this war - faithful to the name of the series (Total War) - usually lasts till one of the combatants is completely torn apart and probably annihilated...
How historical is that? My suggestion - which would alter the way the AI plays quite much and would thus probably offend a lot of players who like the total wars (perhaps this could then be selected from the setup menu as a distinct possibility) - is an AI that, when it seems to be losing (i.e. it has lost a certain percent of its territory - for small factions this would be like 1 settlement and for large ones perhaps 3-5 + that the strength of the nearby enemy armies is superior to the strength of whatever troops it might be able to send to the rescue of the lost towns) it tries to surrender - and, in order to emulate the usual actions of a defeated king in real history, it offers, as well as ceasefire, a respectable sum of money and perhaps trade rights. In some situations, it may also surrender an outlying settlement to the victor (something the current AI is completely unable to do, holding on to each settlement with a kamikaze fanaticism as it does).
On the other hand if an AI is victorious - i.e. it defeats all nearby enemy armies or outnumbers them vastly and it takes a couple of settlements from the enemy - well, as EB and RTW is now, it continus the attack till the enemies are completely destroyed (taking the above example, if Bactria wins, it continues its triumph all the way to the shores of Asia Minor, even if Bactria wasn't the aggressor and really rather wanted to expand in a whole other direction). But how realistic is that (unless we're talking Romans, who should really continue to act that way)? Usually, in the wars between Seleucids and Ptolemies, or even the Punic Wars, the victor would, after having secured himself those enemy lands that he wanted, make peace with the enemy and demand a sum of money and perhaps more lands - but he wouldn't fight all the way to the end of the world.
So if Bactria wins against the Seleucids, my suggestion is that, if they're both AI's, Bactria will perhaps stop after taking five settlements and then offer peace at the price of a sixth settlement and a great sum of money. The Seleucids then decline, and the war goes on. The Seleucids lose two more setllements and then offer peace at a greater sum of money, and Bactria, who didn't want to conquer EVERYTHING ON THE MAP, but rather just wanted a slight expansion into the Iranian lands, accepts...
I know this will be HELL DIFFICULT TO DO, but if it is possible it would really make it easier for small states to survive the onslaught of the big and ensure a more realistic campaign - I know the Roman empire got big, but those kinda empires weren't that ordinary - yet in EB every game ends with 4 or 5 MASSIVE empires and no small states in between at all ;/
Even if it could be done, of course, a lot of players would prolly prefer the old settings, since a superpower AI is more challenging than a peace-loving one, and since the name of the game IS total war, after all. But if an AI as described above was possible, it would really enhance my playing experience, since I'd rather manage a medium-sized empire and fool myself that I'm really a middle-eastern monarch, who just wants to increase his borders a little here and there, but who's otherwise satisfied at developing HIS lands instead of taking everybody elses, than I'd go on a killing-spree wrecking everything with no thoughts of every stopping to stabilize my lands as if I was a hellenistic Genghis Khan. And when I try to live in peace, a handful of foreign lands of course grow into each their Megas Alexandros-sized empires and start crushing me with their boulders. Again, I know that Rome was big, but it was also alone - there wasn't a Germanic and a Hellenistic empire of the same size next to it, no, there were a lot of smaller states, cos smaller states normally prevailed in the history of the old world...
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