Ok, some feedback after playing 1.8 and 1.9 fairly extensively in SP and MP (only one other human player).
First, as a "warmonger" the changes from 1.8 to 1.9 have made a pretty big difference. In 1.8 it was easy (almost stupid easy) to conquer most of the "world" by 1AD, with 1.9 the pace of wars feels much better, mostly due to the minor tech changes I suspect. Anyway, a definate improvement from what I've seen so far as it now takes me an extra 3-400 years to conquer the known world.
As for the AI...
I read some of the changes and while they do declare war more often with 1.9 few of them actually do anything. It's still very common to see some of the AI build large stacks of units and then never use them offensively. In particular Arminius has done this in both of my 1.9 games, in fact during one of the games he declared war on one (I can't recall which) empire and then pulled his armies back into his cities the next turn where they remained for about the next thousand years until I went in and killed them. This was a substantial army, with stacks of 10+ per city, mostly spearmen. Other AI opponents are now doing substantially better than before however it is still very easy to found an early religion, build the shrine quickly and then end up with a bunch of neighbors who will never attack you. Perhaps the same religion bonus could be removed or reduced, leaving only the penalty for having a different state religion?
Religion spread has been working better as well. Playing as the Greeks I didn't found my own religion and by ~500BC only 2 of my 8 cities had any religion in them.
Also when playing as the greeks I noticed that I didn't receive my free "Combat 1" promotion for Axemen or Swordsmen. I didn't see that mentioned in the readme so I don't know if it is a desired effect. If it isn't a desired effect you may want to leave it in, it has the pleasant effect of giving the Greeks a strong early army but only a mediocre army later.
There is a Carthagian city with a TXT_KEY_ for a name, sorry I can't remember which right now I'll check the savegame later if you need the name.
One of Teutra's (sp?) units has a messed up formation (or is missing form the formation defs). I'm (obviously) not good with names, it's their UU with a mix of re-skinned praetorian models and a spearman. You get some funky combat animations as a result like your attackers will swing at empty air and then one of their defenders dies on the other side of the tile.
The units with defensive bonuses on plains/grasslands (spearmen, hoplites, etc) need some attention. Technically almost every tile in the game is plains or grasslands so they get extra defensive bonuses in woods, on hills and in cities. Basically all woods are also grass/plains so they get the normal +25% for woods on top of their +20 or so bonus for grassland/plains, the same happens on all but the desert hills and in virtually every city. As a result they feel a bit overpowered as defenders, in fact they end up with higher bonuses in woods and on hills than the units that have either of those specifically.
Archers could use something as well, particularly in the early game. Maybe something as simple as a bonus against melee units. Currently they're useless, they are the easiest defenders to defeat and since they cost more than most melee units and perform worse I never build any for myself. The collateral damage doesn't feel like enough, even though it is more than the javelins have (I think). Perhaps they should be the only non-siege unit to do collateral damage, that would definately give them some appeal over javelins.
I'd also like to suggest removing the "Armored ..." units. The number of available units feels a bit excessive with them in there when they really only offer a very small increase in strength over the earlier units. In my opinion a better option would be an armor promotion granted by a building similar to the existing weapon promotions. The various flavor units are excellent so it's not that the mod has too many total units, just too many that can be built by a single empire.
Anyway, great mod, keep it up
