AIs and creeps - under the impression that ...

Hi,

After a few games, it seems obvious to me that the AI pioneers are never attacked by monsters and ruffians. This is a bit of a disappointment as it appears to be a bit of a cheap trick to boost the AI. But ... ok, I can admit that if it boils down between having the AI unable to settle or having that, I prefer the latter...

But then it also seems to me that the ruffians & monsters never attack any AI stack, even armies. I watch over several monsters armies around my borders, and they never seem to move against an AI army. Is that so? In this case this break quite a bit my suspension of disbelief, plus, perhaps more importantly, I think it is not good for the long term balance of the game, as I have seen a kind of 'accumulation' of AI monsters that are never trimmed down to reasonable numbers, except if I happen to be around. Perhaps this can even cause a major memory shortage in the end game, if there are whole continents with tons of monsters armies, I don't know.

So, what is your experience? I'm under an illusion and AIs and monsters battle, or not?

In others news, I would not be surprised, given the fast 'land grab' of the AI, that the prestige penalty for multiple settlements don't apply to it. But this is another story. Any idea by the way how to mod the base prestige gain or the prestige loss from multiple settlements?

Thanks in advance for your answers. I still do enjoy Elemental though!