The AI cheats anyway, specifically with reduced upgrade costs and even tech/maintenance at prince. You're only killing 1 civ with this usually (earth 18 civs in europe is a special case), and unless this grants continent control it means that while you'll be bigger, so will remaining AIs.
Similar to the SH example I put up, the player has to know what to do to optimize such an early 2nd city. At the very least, typical warrior rush target cities will force the player into a net loss if he tries to go 100% science, and the conquest money won't last so long given the fact that the capitol was probably size 2-3 (remember, we're talking prince or lower). While 5-6 warriors are still more hammer efficient than a settler, it amounts to that basically. It's early game - you don't have writing yet, may not have pottery yet even, probably bronzeworking soon but maybe not even that. The advantage amounts to 1 less AI in the game, an earlier city than normal, and a production advantage via the earlier extra city (which will be debatable until you field workers to make improvements - again we're at a level where the AI might not have one, or might not have one where you can steal it and still take the city in a timely/safe fashion). As it stands, the difficulty of more AIs vs less is debatable. The extra early city is nice, but hardly something that guarantees a person whose level is ACTUALLY noble or prince victory.
As for myself, warrior rushes are...well...impossible, since I play at emperor in most of my games. Not so hot then. Would a warrior rush at prince help me win? Sort of, but I haven't been even close to losing at that level in months...making it amount to very little either way for me.
The AI may be hard-coded to not declare, but it's certainly not hard-coded to avoid defending itself. If at war it will spam more units in those 80 turns. Hell, at higher difficulties it will whip before then, and if you give it early bronzeworking I bet it'd even whip out warriors at noble or prince. It certainly knows power ratings, so why not adjust?
As to the argument of simplicity, every tactic in this game represents a degree of difficulty vs simplicity. Memorized tactics, such as the warrior rush, don't take skill to execute. Really, how much "skill" is involved in bombardment and then using CR siege to attack before axes, swords, or maces? I learned to do that on day 1, and I have a feeling most other players did too. The skill lies in the strategic execution of these strategies.
Or, to put it another way, boot up 30...say fractal...games at prince and try to warrior rush the nearest opponent in every single one of them, and then try to tell me, with honesty, that it was the most useful decision in every single one of them. I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd put my money on the assertion that you'd find a good number of those games where warrior rushing isn't viable or costs more than its worth. Isolation, very far enemy capitols, and expansion potential of remaining AIs are all factors that could hamper the warrior rush considerably. In other words, even with this "cheese" tactic, it requires some degree of scouting and situation recognition to be applied to its potential. Sure, easy for us. Maybe not for everyone else though. Noble and prince are relatively easy difficulties - the player SHOULD be able to smack the AI around easier on them.
Anyway, you can label any tactic you want to as lame or not in SP and it makes no difference at the end of the day. It IS a slippery slope however, and as far as I can tell it doesn't make any less sense than AIs accepting bribes into wars they shouldn't be going into if they were to win the game, baiting enemy SoDs into unfavorable terrain such as cities next to your CR SoD, and diplomatic votes based on disposition. All of those things have variable difficulties associated with their recognition and execution, and all of them take advantage of weak strategy by the AI. I'd rather not confine myself to pretend rules and just play to the situation, but if it's more fun for you to play a different game via extra rules then by all means do it.
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