The AI has many issues, but the most glaring is its tendency to suicide a sovereign against a hardline defense. This is just a simple illustration of a larger problem. There needs to be some kind of reasonable gameplay mechanisms in place to mitigate the effectiveness of decapitation strikes against the AI. The number of times I have caught a sovereign outside his cities, made a quick strike on the town, flipping its influence and then immediately killing the now vulnerable sovereign are innumerable. If you are playing to win, there is simply no reason to seek any conflict other than this; everything else is just wasted time and not as cost effective.
Now, if we're married to the idea of absolute victory on sovereign death, the only way the AI is going to be able to keep its sovereign alive against a smart opponent is through a strong defense. It really needs to protect itself better by keeping it inside a city with strong defenders at all times, thus when the battle ends but before the city flips influence and leaves him vulnerable to instadeath, he teleports out. If the AI does not keep his sovereign safely inside a city, a player can and will exploit this fact at every difficulty level. This poses its own set of problems--why is the sovereign, a powerful unit, guarding his capital instead of helping expansion or adventuring? If he's just sitting there, its an unconvincing AI trick that directly reminds me of AoW 1's kind of corny capitalwhoring AI that would sit and waste away rather than expose itself at all. So--there needs to be a gameplay mechanic that makes it a reasonable proposition for a sovereign to bunker up... after all, this is historically what rulers do. And in fiction, where do we find our wizards?
In towers. I propose an improvement researched early magic tree that enables a Sovereign's Tower national improvement (1 per faction). This improvement would give an essence boost of perhaps 25 %, and enable a sovereign to cast spells anywhere inside his influence. This would not only make the AI less susceptible to quick decapitation and force a decisive battle at the capital, but enable the AI to impede your invasion in safety. This will also address or help address the future squealings I am anticipating over instant faction kill in multiplayer, and all without neutering the power and influence of a sovereign. It also enables all kinds of neat overland map strategies involving pushing your influence! Would also strengthen the currently underpowered sovereign traits that receive station bonuses in cities, and allow these kind of tower sovereigns a way to gain experience as well.
Hope someone at Stardock sees this and puts it into consideration, but I think its a pretty damn good idea and will solve several problems while strengthening gameplay.
Ciao,
-jjm
