Jacobhinds said:
The bloated cheaty income the AI gets on VH/VH inflates their opinion of themselves, which in turn makes them feel less cautious about throwing armies away. I'm convinced there's a hidden "panic mode" the AI goes into when it runs out of money, because in Rome II when I removed their free income, they suddenly started acting a lot more intelligently.
Ya there are mods to eliminate that problem in Attila as well as RomeII I believe. Such as
No AI Cheats
For most things that you list can be fixed with mods, such as the CAI, unit cards, and
the upgrade system
The turn-based things you bring up are very legitimate concern though. I can't stand it myself.
A new general spawns right after defeating an army without a turn passing by, quite frustrating.
I agree with your conclusion that the game sucks, but they did make strides of graphical, animation, and multiplayer improvements from ShogunII.
Though those should really be second to campaign mechanics.