Quote Originally Posted by Ordani View Post
The Shogun AI was fantastic -- probably as a result of the simpler unit mix and the less complex playing fields, and while it had its aberrant behaviors, benefited greatly from its simplicity while still having a good repertoire of tactics. [...]

You have to give some leeway the more complex the permutations of a game are. It's easy to make a challenging AI for Chess or Risk or Go, because you can exhaustively search predictive move sets based on current board set for each turn. That is not algorithmically possible in a game like ETW in which there are astronomical, as in, more atoms than available for a quantum computer the size of the planet, numbers of possible action variations over the course of a real-time event series.
I totally agree with you, Ordani. You cannot expect from the AI human intelligence or ability to learn in a game such as ETW.

On the other hand, playing on higher difficulty settings against equivalent or superior AI (in numbers and, if possible in technology) really gives you a challenge.

I'm a vet TW and have played all titles since Shogun (Shogun still is my favorite, but maybe just because everything was so new). What I can notice in ETW is the AI is much more mobile on the battlefield. It will always try to exploit weaknesses in your line. Of course, if you absolutely outnumber or dominate it doesn't stand much of a chance, but this is no surprise. Try equal or give the AI some advantage and it will be a better battle.