I gotta go with the OP on this one.  not that initiative is "broken", but it is overall twice as important point for point as any other statistic in the game, hands down.

and i also agree that there are a lot of meaningless high level traits.  so many that I spent days modding them so they made more sense, even adding the features that come with mods like heroic pursuits.

no, a LOT of those original traits make no damn sense at all.  OP is absolutely 100% correct.

BTW if anyones interested there's a great explanation from tjashen on how (he thinks, and it sounds about right) Initiative works in reply #15 in this thread:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/445840/page/1/

Have you tried upping difficulty? What level are you winning on?

Also, have you tried playing against the units you've created?

So if you create a bunch or uber-unit designs with your favorite faction and then only use that faction, you have a big advantage because the AI is stuck with the default unit designs.  But given that the AI will use unit designs you create in future games... if you have played a bunch of factions and created (good) unit designs for them... the AI will be able to use them in future.

Also, maybe you might want to try DsRaiders AI+ mod or Blood & Mana mod, which have some improved unit designs for all factions and some AI tweaks.

AI+

https://forums.elementalgame.com/450634/page/3/#3475476

Blood & Mana

https://forums.elementalgame.com/451769/page/2/#3475863

Personally, I feel that the problem that the initiative system has is more that the minimum possible value (4) of initiative is too low relative to the maximum possible value (~32) (minimum and maximum values are for trained units fresh out of a fortress and including the potential bonus from Aura of Grace in the maximum; you can further modify values with Amarian Blood + fire shards, Slow/Haste, a Commander with at least one level of Tactician, Wraith Blood's Zealot trait - which despite being an 'as trained' value I've ignored because it costs you too much for what it gives you, or that Air spell that permanently boosts a target unit's initiative, and perhaps some other stuff that I'm forgetting). The ratio between the typical minimum value (10) and the typical maximum value (25-27) is also too great, as this ratio results in the fastest units acting 2.5-2.7 times more frequently than the slowest units (and this is more the difference between a unit in plate armed with a maul and a unit in chain armed with a sword, dependent on what traits you choose to go with the weapon/armor combination, rather than something silly like dagger + leather compared to plate + crossbow). A more reasonable initiative range, in my opinion, might put the maximum possible as-trained value at no more than twice the minimum as-trained value, so perhaps something like 12-24 or 15-30, with the base initiative value being perhaps 1.4 times the minimum (meaning that the maximum is about 1.4 times the base value).

The somewhat ironic thing is that the very spell that players use to further distort the initiative levels into their favor - Aura of Grace - has the potential to reduce the initiative disparity if only the computer would produce its units out of a fortress with two or three essence and enchanted with Aura of Grace rather than seemingly building units at random within its empire, even if we were to change nothing about how the initiative system works or increase the initiative for the default unit designs the computer factions use. A unit with 13 initiative instead of 10 is in a much better place relative to that 25-27 initiative unit the player has, even though it's still not in a great position, and the superior defense that the slow unit has might be sufficient to allow the army as a whole to make up for its lower average initiative.

Erm, we are all playing against the AI here.  The point of a discussion like this isn't to sling words it's to make suggestions to fix the problems or come up with alternative solutions.

 Sounds reasonable. I'll look into that.

I am currently on hard. Just finished my game last night (with patchwork mod) by doing the world quest or whatever. I got even one of my cities conquered there (then i conquered 6 of his)  - the enemy had superb units and tech.

Its just... my heroes alone pretty much killed anything in their wake.

It was mausolos, some commander, some mage, my souvereign (assasin) and that beggar dude. My whole team acted at least twice before any enemy unit most of the time (hello there albeix).

I never used celerity, so... 

The AIs army consisted about 50% of archers. Which are annoying, no doubt, but are no match for anything except militia.

Exactly, units produced in Forts are much tougher then normal. Even just Aura of Grace and the Strike Garrison make a huge huge difference. Until the AI starts building units from Fortresses with buffs their units will always be much weaker then players' and easy to kill.