I've tried a few different combinations: the elf/rogue and draconian/druid of the campaign setting, and elf/druid and orc/theocrat on random maps. Granted, you need time for this to be fruitful (the time an outpost grow to a rich city), but you play against AI. If you can't win the AI by pure tactical genius, you can win them by economic dominance. I have to found several cities whenever I find a suitable spot of land, near resource sites and treasure site that grant my units special bonuses. perhaps conquering Independants is enough for good players. use strategic spells to boost your troops and economy and cripple your enemys. Refuse fights on disliked terrain, induce the AI to attack you on a terrain that you like more. when a combat is coming, pay attention to the type of terrain where it should stand. do you make use of battle and unit enchantments to boost some units'stats, like making them nearly impervious to physical attacks, etc, and to disable the enemy? Even a T4 unit can be stunned, frozen, entangled, blinded, etc. do you fully understand flanking tactics and actions points rules, and use them to your profit, or do you boldly charge the enemy, only to be surrounded and hacked to pieces on the next turn? (see Beginner's Guide) I suspect other reasons than the AI being too smart. Playing on Squire difficulty, I think that you shouldn't be so punished by the AI, if you developped your empire enough. The next difficulty up just prevents the AI from turtling less with no extra bonuses to anything, I believe. This results in an AI that easily turtles and just waits for the player to come to them.

If I remember correctly, the Squire AI will never go after Human players (not sure on other AI players). Usually this is more of a problem when the AI is more aggressive.Īnother thing that would probably make the game better is to play on the level up from Squire (Knight?). This might be the case with your situation, but possibly not. One thing to keep in mind, some people do that are used to Civ and Total War is to not be aggressive enough early in the game so that they end up behind technologically and militarily. Sometimes trebuchets are not the best solution to city sieges depending on spells/city enchantments/defending units the enemy has.

A few questions, what class are you playing as? Any different settings (besides difficulty)? What turn do these battles usually happen on? Do you have any screenshots of the army compositions for the city battles? To see army composition.

Age of wonders 3 guide to combat