Which version are you playing? 1.19d Brad put in some AI work to make the sovereigns more careful. See the OP of this thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/405696. I can confirm this as I went after Magnar quite early in my 1.19d real game and that dude ran like he was Forrest Gump; "Run, Forrest, Run!". I took over his entire empire but instead of hanging around he ran. Gilden finally mopped him up somewhere on the map as I couldn't find him.

In addition it was mentioned that 1.3 if we catch a sovereign unawares they might surrender instead of their entire empire poofing away into oblivion. See reply #3 of this thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/405617

NO official ETA.. and my ETA was mid febuary.. so like usual my specualtion was way off.. [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]

Yeah that kind of stuff lowers the fun factor. [e digicons][/e]

Yeah, I'm almost thinking one option for Brad might need to code the AI to:

• Leave the spouse in capital as a guardian, max gear and give some per season xp to level
• Leave the AI sovereign within faction ZOC as a defensive unit for the kingdom, max gear, and give some per season xp to level
• Exclude the AI from permanent defeat via death - let he/she always escape until there are no cities to flee to - it's just plain cheese right now to decapitate a sovereign and subsequently nuke the whole empire. I end up feeling like I've stolen lunch money from a kindergartner - I might have something to eat but it makes me feel like crap afterwards. Just for the record, I was never a schoolyard bully. I am, however, a Demandobot! [e digicons]:cylon:[/e]

I've been playing on a large map for over a thousand turns now. I'm just getting a feel for things now that there have been more changes and tweaks, so it started out with the world and AI's all at normal difficulty.

I built a mega capital, every wonder in the world in it, and once I learned every spell I replaced all arcane labs with tech producing buildings. Destroyed land and raised mountains to create three chokepoints around my city, with a city in each choke point, essentially making it so those cities had to be captured before my capital could even be approached.

I left one little hole open so that I could see how the AI would act.

Since meeting the first AI's, I have spent several hundred turns at war with them. I have yet to see their soveriegns. One AI was wiped out by another at some point, but it was in the FoW so I didn't witness it.

So on my game it seems like they're doing pretty well as far as the AI sovereigns go.

My thing is this, however - My sovereign is always on the front lines. A few heroes in maxxed gear and some decent squads and intelligent deployment, and I never have to worry about things. I feel like the AI instead of relying upon whether or not the sovereigns should go into their cities or go out and explore, I think if the AI just made better decisions regarding party makeup, tactical AI, and pre-planning on whether or not to fight or run, the sovereign would follow suit. The Sovereigns should be at the forefront of battles, they should be parading through other lands while they're at war, because it fits the lore. And if the sovereign is treated like a standard unit minus being expendable in calculations, then I think the AI would do much better.

But the AI in general is in need of a lot of work, and so the sovereigns will come with that. I don't believe it should be like chess in that as soon as the king is done, the side is finished and the board is cleared. Dynasty continuation would be good, or civil wars even with heroes taking over cities as city states. That'd be great too. Though that's not an AI issue, that's a functionality issue. But it would be a great short term fix for the AI. Dynasties = second chances for the AI making mistakes.

I hear ya. I would prefer they play as much like a devious human player as possible but there's always the issue of weighing how much in resources (i.e. Brad's time) the deliverable requires. Agree that the sovs should be out exploring and conquering but it's such a fine edge to walk: do something stupid, die, and poof!

This game is unique in that that one specific unit is so important. If that unit dies, they all die. So it makes programming the AI that much more difficult as it's not just another pawn on the chessboard.