never seen the ai do this

[ARCHIPPOS]

Well, since it is a game, and since the game often forces you to set up somewhere within the arbitrary red line that you would not really, especially with some nice terrain just outside the red line, I use it when heaviy outnumbered. Nothing wrong in that when the game prevents me from setting up on that nice, defensible piece of ground just outside it where I had planned to set up from the look of the tile I had placed myself on.

Against a human opponent it is something else. There it is unfair, for in a multiplayer game you should not be too outnumbered.

Precisely... aaaaaand to my defense there are plenty of cases of famous battles where such stratagems were used. For one the famous battle of Marathon where the Atheneans used rough terrain and the sea to secure their flanks against the superior Persian cavalry. Or i could mention Caesar and the famous battle of Gaergovia (he built a friggin' Maginot line there). And how abt the battle of Agincourt ??? Henry V was a CHEATING NOOOOOOOOB !!! :P

BTW the phallanx "noob box" is not so noob either... it was employed by Alexander at the battle of Gaugamela ... unless you play chess there is no "fair and square" victory :)