Civ3 AI did use armies in the past. Very badly in terms of what units got put in them and how they deployed these armies (although I suspect that was due in part to the armies' old gimped nature). But they did use it. However,I think since PTW the preference was to rush buildings, but I've heard (rumours) that the AI will now use military leaders (since they can no longer rush great wonders) to rush city improvements or anything its building, a rather wasteful use if I may say so. If true, at least that should be addressed or the AI is really crippled. The whole purpose of the change in C3C was to give players more incentive to build armies rather than hording leaders for wonders. AI should at least do this.
I've heard a lot of good things about Army usage ( i suppose these armies are prebuilt and usage here refers to army tactics and how it is deployed) in the scenarios. So it's a bit disappointing that's not carried over to the epic games since army usage in terms of tactics in vanilla Civ3 was very weak. Granted this is all hearsay as I've not played any of those scenarios yet.
Ultimately, it would be nice to see this issue addressed. As I've noted a few post earlier I don't expect miracles as the AI has had problems using armies in the past anyhow. A fix in C3C would have been nice, but since it wasn't fixed and it now appears to be even more broken, some remedy would be good.
Correct me if i'm wrong in any of the above points.
P.S. Mods are nice but I'm arguing more on the principle of some basic acceptable level of competence. When Civ3 was released Firaxis made a big deal over much more level playing field in the way the contructed the AI. minimal cheats and for all intents and purposes all features available to humans the AI can use to some degree. If this thing doesn't get fixed, I think it would be too bad. I can live without AI not building fortresses, but no armies just really doesn't sit right with me. But this is rather OT now, as the army issue is part of a large package of bug fixes I'd like to see address in the next patch, hopefully, if there is one.
If this was the only thing broken I just very well might let it go and be happy with what we have.