I did not play GOTM21 and don't know about the peltast. But another idea to help the AI along is to allow the ability to bombard resources to the point where they vanish from their tiles. This "sabotage" option would have to require many turns of bombardment and/or pillaging, but the AI is no stranger to that.
The AI:s propensity for massive bombardment by naval and aerial units rather than ground invasion forces is sometimes tiresome and quite likely to make a player turn off "animate battles". When the human player is the target of the bombardment, the worst things that can happen is generally one turn of civil disorder in a city or two, or the temporary inability for new building orders (ie of a cavalry unit). Then you place workers on the most important tiles. Why not make bombardment more of a threat and less of a nuisance?
Moreover, the AI are often unable to make good use of captured resources. When a civ with resonable culture is eliminated, the AI often misses out on the resources because it cannot found new cities close to the captured ones. The catch is that maybe the AI would sometimes sabotage the very same resource that is the reason for their invasion, so the option would have to be tested thoroughly.
Reflecting on this post, I find it is a response to what I view as a lack of challenges particularly in the late stages of a game, when CivIII no longer feels like the most thrilling game in the world. I posted in this forum because it's the only forum I browse regularly and I'm getting familiar with some people who post a lot of nice stuff here.
