AI is afraid and keeps running away

[R'as al Ghul]

After my initial joy and amazement over this new toy of mine named Rome I'm now really disappointed. The main reason for this is not that units are unhistorical, nor the phalanx-shuffle or anything like that. I even play without any speed- or kill-rate-mods. I'm playing on VH/H.
My main problem is that nobody want's to fight me.
Enemy armies avoid contact on the campaign map.
In my current campaign as Greek City States the only threat the enemies pose is boredom. My empire is surrounded by enemies. Dacia, Thracia, Seleucia, Egypt plus all Romans. The only battles happening though are navy battles. On land everyone routs when I get near them. If I ever manage to trap them into a fight I always have to take care that they haven't a stack that is too weak and if possible that a good general leads them. This proves almost impossible. Most of the time I'm fighting captains. Needless to say that when they have the guts to engage me on the field they either run, when I'm attacking, or they charge themselves to death on my phalanxes, when they're attacking.

Back in MTW, the other factions would breed some very dangerous generals. Remember the Byzantine or Spanish generals? A battle against an 8-star general with an army of jinettes, KnightsSantiago, arbalests and feudal spears and swords, all trained in Navarre with weapon-updates and lots of valour could be really hard. The morale- and valour-boost from the general made his army a real threat. It would take the same amount of troops and good tactics to win such a battle and it was fun. Those generals and sometimes their kings were always the ones to lead an attack. You had to watch out for them and they wouldn't commit suicide on the battlefield, they rather would've withdrawn. Assassination of such characters was also extremely difficult, in contrast to RTW where I bribed 3 members of the brutii and assassinated 1 leader, 1 heir and a general rather easy.

My main critic is that the AI doesn't fight with its generals. It's mostly captains which simply cannot provide the boni necessary to stand against my forces. In connection with this I noticed the absence of the morale-factor? Don't know if it's there but I'm not able to see which unit has which degree of morale. Routing on impact leaves the impression that morale is tool low.
I'll stop here for the time being and to see what your experiences are.

R'as

[Death or Glory]

I agree with most everything you said. In my Greek campaign, once I drove the Macedonians out of the Balkans, that was it. In the twenty years or so I've controlled the area, I think I've had to deal with on half-stack of Thracians, and a couple of weak Brutii armies. The AI seems content to simply shuffle troops back and forth around their cities.

As far as checking moral goes, hover your mouse over an enemy unit. In the little box that pops up, you will see the unit's moral status (Eager, Steady, Wavering, etc.).

[R'as al Ghul]

As far as checking moral goes, hover your mouse over an enemy unit. In the little box that pops up, you will see the unit's moral status (Eager, Steady, Wavering, etc.).

Ok, I've seen that but it would be nice to have a list of base values like in MTW or labels like "disciplined". Right now there's no possibility to check morale if you're not engaged in a battle.

R'as