I have only had a little time to play the new a version, but already I notice an AI that is well armed and good at expanding. They teched up to battelaxes almost instantly and pumped out enough pioneers to make a sailor blush. My usual strategy involves letting them expand and set up all the towns I want, then declaring war and steamrolling their poorly defended cities.

This time the AI was ready for me, training axed soldiers and sending them to the front faster than I could kill them. Now I have had to retreat back to my city so that I can heal my troops. We are in an arms race for the best weapons and armor, though I will get armor first since I can use magic very soon. My only hope is to attack their outlying cities, since the ones I really want have about 10 axemen per and I am still using the frakking warstaff. The best thing is that this is only the first faction I have met, so I can bet that the others will be more powerful as they are not losing constant troops in a territory war.

My only hope is to buy sufficient weapons for my heroes so that their strength bonuses will overcome the enemy before they start training lordhammers. All in all this is beta requires much more dynamic strategies than the last one and I am guessing it is because the AI tags are working again.