Outrageous? I think it doesn't cheat enough. Yes, the Campaign and Battle AI certainly can and should be vastly improved, but I have never seen a strategy game AI that can come close to beating a good player on an even playing field (excluding games like Chess). The most challenging strategy AIs always cheat because they need to do so in order to win. That doesn't mean that it's bad. The Civ 4 AI is one of the most difficult I have ever seen and it relies exclusively on cheating at higher levels to achieve this.