[thejeff]

I think most of the resistance to the idea of turning powerful mod nations into AI only nations is that people want to play them not just fight against them. Also a lot of things that would be overpowered in a good player's hands the AI might just flail around with, so a nation could be overpowered but still weak for the AI.

One thought for boosting AI nations is to mod in summons that are the equivalent of fully-geared and buffed thugs and SCs. The AIs real trouble with either is that it doesn't equip them sensibly or cast the useful buffs. So make summons that lack slots and paths, but have built-in gear, resistances etc that mimic at least the common thug gear. I know everything isn't moddable, but many things are. Resistances, MR, luck, ethereal, regen, reinvig, fear, awe, fireshield. I don't think there's a way to get the VineShield effect. If you give them weapons in a mod, I don't think they get the special effects, but most of them you could add in as an extra attack.

Since this would be for the AI to use in SP, balance isn't a great concern. You can just mark the spells as "AI-only" and let the player honor that. Or not. It's SP.