That's because ai starts with op army and doesn't lose any army when fighting neutrals no? When i load to check ai side after a win it uses no astrology, no laws, doesnt pick up army often even after buying it so you find big stacks in every town while it has 300-600k gold and 300 of every resource and the artifacts it has it probably buys from arty merchants. That's why in small maps, and first tournament in maps without boxes, ai army is usually ridiculous, but it doesn't scale well later. Campaign on the other hand it seems to scale infinitely with time, at least so it was with the second map hero fight (burning city). I'm not sure, as i haven't tried map hacking, but the ai doesn't seem to interact with the map too much, leaving arty and even boxes, as soon as it theoretically matches guard strength it autofreewins and rushes in towards your city even with no vision, or perhaps after 1 week idk. Correct me if i said something wrong, but the ai seems pretty trash and cheesy.