Even if the AI sucks, I prefer to have an awesome game with poor, but fixable by modders, AI, than to have a buggy game, with buggy EVERYTHING from graphics to the very coreplay, with an AI that sucks and isn't fixable by anyone but the developers who just don't.
Most people that criticize the AI of total war games appear to simply don't know that the AI in total war series is a matter of tweaking and optimizing the database table that control their actions. Something that anyone can do, something that someone always do and improve the game 100% in a matter of few months after release.