I'd like to add few obsevations into these recent "is Dominions worth playing Single-Player" and "Dominions vs all the others" posts:
Dominions' AI cheats. It knows where you are. However, it doesn't become blatant except in few exceptional circumstances, e.g. FOUR PLAYERS ON THE WORLD MAP! In most games I would play, versus AI or humans, there would be much less distance between enemies. And I think it's better that every AI player knows the location of all other nations (NB: this also includes other AIs!), because they can't communicate with each other and share information like humans could.
Re: AI starting wars against humans without reason: AFAIK, AI considers the threat of a nation before going into war against it. E.g. AI doesn't attack nation which has strong armies next to its own provinces, or even player who has lots of PD in his provinces. However, I think AI also follows the graphs, and starts war against someone who is in the lead. And I know that AIs war between each other, so I think this isn't limited to human players. I think that the only reason for AIs to pick out humans is because they are designed to attack the nation in the position humans most often acquire: the leading one, or in the case of a new player: weakly defended lands.
Re: other games giving more enjoyment than Dominions:
Roguelike games and their ilk (including Diablo and its clones) are games based very much on luck. Good equipment is critical for survival in hardcore roguelikes, and for enjoyment in low-risk games like Diablo (from this on, D&Co). I don't know if D&Co games give tactical options like roguelikes do, but I doubt it. From what I have seen, the AI in D&Co is very stupid. The AI in driving games was also quite stupid the last time I played one, but that was in year '97 or so. I'd say that it's easy to do a game where the player can challenge himself. The other drivers are there just to get him interested in the first place. After that, he competes against his own records, and to improve his skills. I don't know if D&Co work like slot machines, where players continue playing in the hope of better items, or if it's more like roguelikes, where the player's skill is needed to overcome all the obstacles until something the player OR character isn't able to cope with comes up and the player can start again, having learned something.
In Dominions, the players' skill should be the biggest variable. If AI could just get lucky, and its army of 300 militia, light infantry and longdead could defeat the 200-strong army of summons and sacreed units lead by the Fire 9 Moloch, protected, boosted and supported by dozen mages, there would be no reason to play. And it's not possible to make a "ghost driver" of your own strategy. An AI that scriptable would be awesome, of course, especially if it could "learn" your playstyle (research priority: Enchantment 1, Evocation 3, Alteration 2, Evocation 5, Construction 4, Conjuration 5, etc) from just observing your choices few times. But in driving games the "ghost" doesn't need to avoid other cars. You can't tackle the ghost. Similarly, the "ghost" in strategy games is more often a score list, where you get points for speed and might, for luck and skill, and you can see your improvement.
They are listening. Writing a good AI is very challenging, and it's hard, impossible to copy the ways with which games of other genres achieve replayability (?), or in some cases it makes the game less fulfilling. I have enojyed DomII in singple-player. The best memories are often from those times I lost. Try playing Mictlan, with non-SC pretender, in a map too small and with too many enemies. It's like insta-death roguelike converted into strategy game.
