Find AI strategic move scripts very annoying?

[Belcarl]

There are ways to strike before a regular army moves, during the magic phase. Drop a couple of mages with Teleport, Cloud trapeze etc on the hostile army.

Lamashtas, the perfect storm, area spells like falling fires, bottle of living water, howl, shark attack etc.

Use them for 2-3 turns depending on hostile force, then retreat. This will wittle down the hostile force so you can defeat it with your PD once it attacks your own province.

This is against the AI ofourse, the raiding part still works against a human opponent, but expect a trap and more clever countermoves.

I usually beef up my frontlines against the AI with 40+ PD with 2-3 long range thugs and maybe a cheap combat mage. No losses for me, and my main force doesn't need to kill whatever the AI attacks my "wall" with.