Well, I wasn't. Doesn't change that it's a good point seek brings up.
No it is not. Overall scaling down of the number of units means that the relative importance of each move becomes bigger, and that AI mistakes (which are inevitable) hurt the AI more.
(Also, "scripted" AIs are useless for games like civ, because they cannot cover all possible situations, and are therefore easily exploited by presenting it with situations not accounted for by the script. You seem to be making easy accusations without having given the problem of programming an AI for civ (or other 4X games) as serious thought.)
First, it's clear that I'm not a professional programmer. But there's no need to get personal in here. It's obvious that on a site called civFANATICS you will not be able to have discussions on a academic level. And while I don't have experience in programming, I would like to share the obversations I have made from playing these games. I don't feel like I made accussations, I try to look for solutions.
So you say that with fewer units, mistakes matter more. That for me doesn't tell me we should strive to have as many units on the map as possible. It rather tells me that we can keep the number of units only so low as 'the mistakes of the AI' allow it. I would nevertheless strive to have fewer units on the map, see congestion issues and all that.
The AI's problem in civ5 is not getting units on the map, but what it does with units once they are there. So, no improving reaction time is not going to do much for the AI.
I often see that I can stay defensively while destroying the AI's army. Afterwards it's easy to destroy the single units the AI sends or produces. First, because it likes to send them one-by-one, and secondly because there's no place on the map for those units to hide. If you are under siege, you can't produce a new unit in the city because there's no place for it to go. This effect is apparent with naval units especially.
While 'getting units on the map' isn't the problem, it's forming a 'battle group' that can withstand a few turns of combat.
As for scripts, I am confident that certain 'battle group compositions' may help the AI more than the 'flavour' system. Obviously, there needs to be a bit of randomness added.
I think you misunderstand mitsho here. He's referring to the AI's boneheaded stubbornness in completing certain objectives in spite of changing situations. For example, an English AI has determined to attack one of your border cities, you bribe the German AI on the other side of England to help you in your war but England keeps pushing the original city despite the fact that the better play would have been to stay and defend it's flank.
While I didn't mean exactly this, it does play into it. Another example, conquest AI's often try to attack the weakest civ. Which often means that they will attack across unfavourable terrain and over a middle-to-large-distance. That's why when Montezuma is your neighbour you build up your military as a deterrent. Most often however, the best way is to attack your nearest neighbour, it doesn't matter if his military is 10 % stronger than the Indias half a continent away. The strength difference is lost on the way and with you not being able to bring up reinforcements swiftly.
Regarding combat units, that means that the production of your army takes up a number of turns ranging from 10 - 90 (so, many turns), and that includes research, upgrade, production and moving them to where they matter. This long-term approach and need to build the units is a big challenge to the AI, don't you agree? I would prefer to eliminate that 'production' cycle. It is after all 'unrealistic' that it takes me 400 years in the beginning to give a few men some clubs who then continue to stay on like that for the next 3600 years... Wars (or unit movement) in civ are scaled wrongly to the rest of the game like researching technologies, building wonders and so on. In
my ideal game, those would be decided in a few short turns.
EDIT: And again, I want to stress that I don't want 'units' on the map, but 'armies' that work more like the air units and their recon and bombard missions, so with range and stations.