@ oaty: yes, keeping reserves is a clever tactic, one of the most important tactical decision there are on the battlefield but it's ridiculous when the AI sends their footmen forward and keep their cavalry WAAAAAAY out on the flanks to hit my flanks when I've already routed their footmen, pretty much. That's what I meant with AI keeping reserves out of battle too long. If kill rate is slowed down and you play very hard, the AI morale should more or less force you to try and flank the enemy in order to keep your own footmen from routing and then the enemy reserves would have an effect by charging your flanking troops. The other AI problem I can think of is when AI tried to charge phalanxes from the front too often. In non-phalanx warfare the AI isn't nearly as bad, even though it's lacking in many aspects - among other things because it has bad timing. I'm trying to make a mod for the Dark ages and I believe I'll get quite good AI results compared to the vanilla AI slightly slower battle speed, slightly slower unit movement (especially for heavy infantry) and powered down cavalry plus less powerful spear units. Hopefully that combo will result in getting the most out of the current AI code.

@drone & oaty: ok, I guess I was wrong in that battle speed slowing down would fix all things... just a thought... Hopefully the other changes I've come up with will in total result in something useful.