1. AI does not use smoke skillfully, and Z fire is unheard of. Because of that it is relatively easy to creep forward to a defensive position held by AI, to disengage from a bad firefight and to make an elastic defense. The main soluition to that is IMHO to pick factions that have little to no TI for yourself and give a lot of TI to AI. This will nullify some of the AI smoke deficiency. Of course, that means you have to pick sides from late 70ies onwards.