Ever got one of those battles...

[Wardruid]

... where AI just tosses away a perfectly good general, faction heir or leader and haves him attack one of your armies with either nothing but say... (tsk tsk )peasants and town militia?

I was marching my way to Alexandria as the Seleucids with a pretty decent army:
6 Phalanx pikemen (most on 3 bronze chevrons or 1 silver)
2 Silver shield pikemen (Pretty new units about 1 bronze each)
3 Cretan archers (Just got them from the Turkish peninsula)
2 Cataphracts (Most experienced 3 silver)
and the general (who's pretty good in military and hates the Egyptians to boot)

When I ended the turn, Egypt sends at me what would be the most sorry army I've seen
7 Peasants
3 Nile spearmen
2 Desert Cavalry
3 Axemen
4 skirmishers
and three generals (one was the faction heir)

I decided to go for the traditional phalanx line, the cataphracts on each end, the archers and the general at the rear.
I killed all the generals and all that managed to escape were the desert Cavalry and what's left of the bodyguards. I lost 56 troops
After that I took Alexandria and then Memphis with the same army in the next turn w/o any real trouble. All alexandria had was the nearly depleted desert infantry and Memphis just had the Faction king. When I ended that turn I find out the Egypt was now destroyed because their last city, Thebes rebeled and kicked out the army. ...Ouch
There were about 5 generals who turn to rebels most were on Numidian Territory trying to get land. I bribe all of them.
What a lousy way to go

[PseRamesses]

... where AI just tosses away a perfectly good general, faction heir or leader and haves him attack one of your armies with either nothing but say... (tsk tsk )peasants and town militia?
...
I decided to go for the traditional phalanx line, the cataphracts on each end, the archers and the general at the rear.
I killed all the generals and all that managed to escape were the desert Cavalry and what's left of the bodyguards. I lost 56 troops
After that I took Alexandria and then Memphis with the same army in the next turn w/o any real trouble. All alexandria had was the nearly depleted desert infantry and Memphis just had the Faction king. When I ended that turn I find out the Egypt was now destroyed because their last city, Thebes rebeled and kicked out the army. ...Ouch
There were about 5 generals who turn to rebels most were on Numidian Territory trying to get land. I bribe all of them.
What a lousy way to go

The AI has a real problem with forming well balanced army composition. I often see it prefer missiles and to few spears to protect them. It also seem to always "march divided and fight divided" instead of fighting united. The results are multiple easy to pick off smaller bands of 2-6 units.
The AI re-evaluate its situation each turn (which is good) with ridiculous concequences. It hardly never stick with its first objective and constantly changes it in every turn - one turn siege here, break off, another siege somewhere else. A single unit sallies a besieged town, containing a single unit, against a full stack with a 100% failure as a result - why? This game needs a serious odd-calculator.
The AI never holds formation and always engages you unit by unit and doesn´t have the most rudimentary "knowledge" of even a simple concept as the "paper-scissor-rock" equation. The only strategic concept it does seem to use fairly well is trying to outflank you. But even this turns into a ridicoulus result as units gets stuck at the edge of the battlemap still trying to outflank you although there´s no way to go.
It constantly holds back spears and attacks with missiles (hand to hand) before using their primary weapon, the missile. Cavalry charges straight into 7-8 row deep phalanx units. Highly suicidal generals that behave in the same manor etc etc.

What a lousy way to fight.

[AndyNgFL]

what version of RTW are u all playing ?

[Goalie]

Well what difficulty were you playing on that can make a huge difference in the AI's decisions.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Sometimes a lone general decides to be the sole unit in a relief force when I'm sieging a city. He doesn't even bother to link up with the reinforcements (garrison). This has happened at least once in all my campaigns.

[Papewaio]

It happens to my lesser heirs all the time.

They go to battle to take one for the greater good.

I give them a substandard army of misfits that I don't need. If he succeeds and makes up for some of his flaws he gets some better troops. Rinse and repeat.