The AI does have free scouts as well.

I think that the basic problem is AI bonuses in general are not an effective way of increasing difficulty. It is good to see the Better AI project reducing the amount of bonuses that the AI needs. However, with the current system, every AI would archer-rush you at the same time if they were told to war ultra-early. I also wouldn't say that no ultra-early war is a handicap. The human player can't do it either. The only true war like that that I have seen is HOF games with rushing with a single Quecha on Deity and reloading to get the 10% win for a very early (IMO cheating) way. (3850BC win

)
I think only civs with hunting get free scouts. Giving bonuses to the AI is necessary, because there is no other feasible way to make the AI challenging. The question is,
which bonuses are the most appropriate, and provide the most challenging and fun experience for the player?
The only reason that a human player can't war ultra-early is....
You guessed it. The free archers given to the AI.
Do you see my point? They give free archers to the AI to prevent the human player from declaring war too early, then said, "Uh-oh, these archers are
dangerous to the human player. Better nerf the AI and program it so it can't
use the archers we give it." It's a sloppy solution. It means that they gave the
wrong bonuses to the AI in the first place. There must be a better way.
(By the way, the human player
can declare war ultra-early, to steal workers and pillage improvements. Not all wars need to capture cities.)
I think replacing every free archer with one or two free scouts is a possible solution. That would mean that
some AI civs will gain a big early tech advantage, while
some AI civs will be stuck with just the "normal" research/production bonuses. Consequently, the human player might actually benefit from an archer rush, if the target AI happened to get unlucky with its goodie huts.
This solution would give an extra strategy choice to the human player, instead of railroading you into "Bronze Working first; if you don't have Copper, then Animal Husbandry; if you don't have horses either, only
then do you ever bother with Archery" formula.
sylvanllewelyn said:
The AI has to discover you, and KNOW that you're weak, before declaring war on you. We are assuming that there are no such things as power graphs (which I consider to be cheating). The AI doesn't know that you're weaker than the other AI's, so it'll take time before scouting you out (without open borders, good luck) and realizing that you are, in fact, weak. This may be beyond the ancient era already, and you really shouldn't be building only warriors by that point.
If it's THAT realistic, I see no problems with AI's being aggressive. It'll correct itself. Plus, if the AI's were oppertunistic, once you attack an AI, the rest should dogpile it, making the game way too easy.
I don't consider the Power graph to be cheating, since it's information that's available to all players, including the human one. Think of it as an intelligence network.
The human player can DoW an AI even before scouting the capital city; often, to steal an undefended worker. You can also DoW just to scout the area, and to pillage improvements. In multiplayer, human players are certainly capable of these strategies.
If these tools are available to the human player, why not make them available to the AI as well?
Of course, once you've loaded them up with free archers, you
can't allow the AI to do this, because you've just given the AI an overwhelming military advantage in free units, which, if the AI actually uses, would spell certain doom for the human.
But even given this fact, what is the AI trigger for being able to declare war in the early game? In my experience, it seems dependent on acquiring an offensive unit other than archers: chariots, axemen, swordsmen, or any UU replacements for these units.
Which means you'll never see a Skirmisher or Quechua rush from the AI. (EDIT: on second thought, I've never seen an Axe rush from the AI, either. Have you?)
Oh well.