It's happened, rarely, very rarely. So I'm afraid the answer is mostly no. v9 should increase the amount by a tiny bit, but yeah, nothing to be really scared of I'm afraid. Especially if you're ahead in techs. I don't really expect to be able to get there with the tools I have available either, it'll require a significantly more advanced AI to surmount the very high tech-based city combat strength scaling (which doesn't seem to be alterable)
Hey Siesta. Thank you for putting in the work on this mod. I played a game with it pre-patch on immortal and enjoyed it. Though the AI continues to disappoint. I don't know if this has been brought up yet but to me the biggest issue with the AI is quite simple. It's just too chicken.
If it thinks it's going to lose a unit it almost always retreats. This is extremely counter productive at higher difficulties because the AI's greatest advantage is it's production bonus and ability to spam units and replace dead units much faster.
In my AI+ game at one point France had something like 20+ archers on my borders and at it just wouldn't attack. Which I decided to wipe her out, she would just retreat a lot.
Basically it's really easy to get the AI and even barbarians to back off. Just hurt the full HP units with archers. Once they are half health or even less they retreat.
I'm wondering if there is any way to script a little more bravery into the AI's decision making?
Like if they have X units in the area, don't retreat unless at less than 20% health, even if it means some units will die. Because killing that unit still costs and action and the other units in the area can still do damage.
The other thing I noticed early game is the AI's reluctance to attack cities directly. Often they will have 3-4 warriors near my city but instead focus on my units. Maybe it's afraid of me retaking the city.
Is there any way to make the AI focus on cities more? Barbarians almost seem more effective at this. Perhaps the AI war agenda could be manipulated to mimic this more?
Of course I'm talking blindly as I don't know what the current limitations are in terms of modding.
Perhaps in your mod you could add a selectable option to weaken fortifications? if the AI has difficulty taking fortified cities, lets just weaken forts to make it easier for them? Yes this makes it easier for human players too but it's not like it's hard now?
Just some thoughts. I'm sure you would have considered most of this already but I thought I'd throw it out there.
Thanks for the good work and I look forward to the next version.