I like exploring around a bit with my heroes in leather gear and 14 hp and suddenly i bump into heroes with 50+ hp in enemy factions that have declared war on me. Took me 5 restarts under the latest update on the game for me to realize i needed to invest in more war tech than i had been doing. You certainly can not ignore it like you could before 2 or 3 patches ago.

Exactly.  There is no way that the AI is actually researching and purchasing these items straight up, and it's hugely game-deforming that they cheat to get them.  It's just Not Fun.

had the same problem Umber and Kraxis both hat several champs with sword of wrath etc...

cheap workaround (which works pretty well against anything, apart from heavily armed opponents):

at the time I was focusing research on civ and warfare, the latter mainly on cutting weapons for my sov (wanted the kar.. whatever the blade with +dodge). I didn't have much troops but a rather good equipped sov who could handle almost anything. the first time he (alone, as usual) got into a fight against 2 champs with those insane weapons, I just made sure they won't reach me and still have AP to hit. I've killed them each with one or two attacks (14hp - haha) and only getting hit once (which was as much as I could handle. If you can't, get an assassin with dominate). anyway, after that I focused on dodge and researched the dodge+50% tactical spell. Its still a pure game of chance, but now I win those battles relatively reliable, so reloading isn't necessary too often (I only lost 1 battles of 6 anyway, which was against 2 champs & the sov who even tried casting on me *g*). Even though dodge might not be quite as useful as armor as of yet, in this particular case its way better and works pretty well. plus, you don't have to research armor to soon - saves metal in unit production which, in my case, was necessary as I had no mines near my starting loc.

hope this helps until the bug is fixed

Ora

it IS very odd that the AI gets bonuses like this. But still, the AI never really pushes its advantage so in my experience they've always been realtively easy to counter with either magic or companies of mounted knights wielding lord hammers

I think its just an initial bonus they get to make the AI competative. I hate it myself but until the AI can play the game and stomp us at it I guess the only way for them to have a chance is if we are forced to give them time to beef up. At the very least I've never had any AI just suddenly declare war on me within 100 turns so they are pretty passive early game.

Though it can be a real hassle when an AI spawns right by your starting spot, especially if it walls you in so you can only have one or two cities until you are able to stomp it. It also kinda blows if you like to have an early game aggressive style, which makes aggressive hero designs useful only against monsters early game. I'm sure its something being worked on so you don't always have to play the first 50 seasons the same way each time.

I disagree, stardock have got a history of creating fantastic AI and with it being multi-threaded now I see no reason for the AI to have to cheat in the slightest.

Really hoping that all we need is Brad to whip the AI into shape and that this bonus is just a stop-gap.

Confirmed . awesome! - it was very very scary to fight those damn enemy kids!

"ill bite your legs off!" - is the correct qoute there - though it has been a while since i saw it - hmmm im gonna go watch now