[Saxon]

Level Nine spells do tend to pound the AI. I have got Mechanical Militia up and running and it went from being a closely fought contest to a walk over. They seem to ignore the fact I have a very powerful force guarding each province and are losing all sorts of troops attacking “lightly” defended provinces. This might be a possible change to the AI code in calculating defense of enemy provinces…

As others have said, Level Nine spells should kick some serious tail. That the AI does not deal with it well is systemic to all AI problems. The greater the effect something has, the bigger the impact when the AI does not deal with it well. If the AI can not counter a level one spell, it is not a big deal. After all, a level one spell can only do so much. However, if the AI can not counter my level nine spell, the impact is huge. The programming problem is very similar in each case, but the visible problem is bigger.

On a different topic, I would argue against the idea that “a game should be over well before the level nine spells come out.” I would agree that this is the way it usually happens, but I wish we could have games where the higher level units and spells come into play. This is a common problem with 4X games, where everyone starts at zero and grows. SEIV had an option of starting at higher technology levels, which got these sorts of things into play from the start. While it did reduce the importance of research somewhat, it did allow you to play with all the toys. Perhaps an option for DOM III.