Does the AI cheat?

[Sporf_McGorf]

I'm not good enough (yet) to consistently win against the Hard AI, but I noticed something that had me perplexed: I had control of more than 50% of the settlements and was losing the unit numbers battle BADLY. Like 2:1. I'm wondering if the AI cheats so that it can spend fewer resources on more units? It also might just be that I'm not good enough yet at managing my economy and spending my resources on the right kinds of units to be effective, but it just seemed grossly imbalanced. I know other players (apparently) have no difficulty disposing of Brutal AIs, so maybe there is no validity yo my claim. Let me know, and thank you.

[Gnomi]

The AI can build all troups and buildings cheaper. Otherwise the AI would be very bad, that's one of the few possibilities to make the AI stronger.
But as the AI is not good at fighting different strategies and mostly just spams, you can fight (and win against) the AI by  countering its units and being smarter than the AI.

[Sporf_McGorf]

Easier said than done my friend. I clearly have some things to learn. Thanks for the info, I understand mechanically why things are the way they are. I will endeavor to be a better player so the AI isn't overwhelming me with units all the time. Happy gaming!

[Darkslayer]

In response to the original post: I thought I saw something like this too. The match had just started (by that I mean it was going for like 5 minutes) when I was being swarmed by two 15 point powers (including the Warg Archers, which crushed my Gondor soldiers). Is that intended?

[Gnomi]

No, that's a bug of 4.0.
Update to 4.01 and this is fixed.