Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

I'm noticing in my current game the AI is not using a lot of units to research so I'm easily out researching them. Also, does the AI ever build forts? It doesn't seem to. Does the AI ever forge magic items? Again, it doesn't seem to. I hope these problems can be fixed in a patch.

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

The AI does appear to forge items; I've seen commanders, especially pretenders, decked out in gear albeit perhaps not the most logical selections. It will also use empowerment, global enchantments, remote summons...
It does research, but might not emphasize it enough for a large slow-paced game.
As far as I recall, it does not yet build castles.

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unless there is a random event or magic site that will give you Fortified City, he does http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .
However he doesn't do it very often (maybe cost of castle could be the reason).

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

The AI does know your province defense the turn you set it. I think this might be linked to the fact that you cannot "unbuy" province defense purchased that round, as if it gets saved. It is clear the AI hasaccess to this info.

Does anyone know if the AI on diffcult level starts with a larger army? I sometimes run into the AI on turn 3 or 4, and they have some damn big armies, that do not appear to be merc-based.

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unless there is a random event or magic site that will give you Fortified City, he does http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .
However he doesn't do it very often (maybe cost of castle could be the reason). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think I've gotten Fortified Cities from events, actually -- isn't that the "city builds a ring fortress" one?

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, never got that event but it's possible.

Not sure what are reasons behind such AI-don't-like-building-castles behavior but I remember seeing that discussion in another thread earlier (somewhere at the time when game was released). I guess main problem is how to make AI realize what is best time and place to invest in building castles.

Re: At what difficulty does the AI cheat?
 

You definitely can get Fortified Cities from an event, and it _is_ the building a ring idea.

Just FYI