I've seen this too, but it makes sense! The AI plays like a human player now. What was the status of these civs that had 1 chariot in their border city? I'm willing to bet that said civ defending tis city with 1 chariot was involved in a big war with another civ. What do you do when a huge SOD shows up in front of one of your cities? You bring reinforcements from the other side of your empire, that's what you do... especially if you're at peace with the neighbor on that border. The computer does it too. I figured this out last night when I was playing... Cyrus had captured a barbarian city next to my borders much earlier in the game, and was mounting a huge SOD to attack me, I assumed, since he hated me. He must have had 30 swordsmen,axemen, chariot, and horse archers. Not being capable of repelling this attack, I changed religions to the opposite "big" religion as Cyrus, and bribed one of my newfound friends to attack him. (espionage is great now, seeing the troop movements -- not the poisoning/unhappiness) I watched his huge SOD that was walking towards me immediately turn around and march the opposite way -- back to Cyrus' homeland to defend it, no doubt. Cyrus left a good mix of about 6 defenders in the city near me, but it was seperated from his empire through another Civ's borders (friend/religious ally of his). A few turns later, the friend I bribed to attack him had recruited allies, and Cyrus was getting attacked by 4 or 5 other civs. A few turns after this, all of the 6 units in city near me turned and bolted for Cyrus' main cities, leaving his less important city with only one weak defender. I captured the city of course, but that isn't the point. The point is that the AI is smart enough to set priorities now. It would rather just give up an unimportant city to defend its main empire, instead of trying to make a stand in every city. What would a human player do? You can bet your butt he'd get his troops home to repel the mass invasion, and almost certainly all but abandon a city thats a long ways from his capital in desperate times -- especially if the current neighbor is peaceful... yes, folks, exactly whatyou would do.
Now, I'm not saying the AI is doing a perfect job of playing like a human player, I'm just saying that its trying to... At least it is less predictable, I hate knowing EXACTLY what the AI is going to do every time it attacks me. If Firaxis can improve along the baseline they've set, I think we'll end up with some pretty decent AI.
