Before I get into my story, just want to say that on nation difficulty AI has definitely been improved. Both on upgraded their troops and using them effectively. I can really feel the ai change lol

Setting up the stage

Alright so I am on a map that has three continents one has me and two others. I have them as my vassals. The second one has three and two are fighting to take it, one was kicked out by rebels and is on a island by their self now lol third continent is the one in having trouble with lol there are four nations there. One nation vassalized another and the other vassalized one as well. So it was two nations with a vassal each. Brown has more then the blue but it was pretty even.

The start of the war

Both I did some trades with but they kept wanting to force their religion on me and I got annoyed so i wanted to ya know dial them back a little. My idea was to go up to the north east section and take the blues city and maybe their vassals city and build up a staging area if you will. My goal was the brown since they were bigger but they were on the other side of blues territory. I had 3 stacks of 6. Three legions, one Babylon EU, one archer and one horse each. Figured this would be strong enough since I am usually ahead in tech. So I set out to take the blue city.

Red flag

So when I got there I started marching on the blue city after I declared war and boom it became brown! I didn't check and it turns out the blue and brown are currently in a war. So I save scum and go back and wait for the brown to take it and then declare war on them. So they do and I declare war and match on the blue city now brown. Turns out, when teo nations are at war and you take a occupied city, it turns into the previous owner. So now I have to run through the territory taking attrition until I reach another brown territory.  We find a city and take it easily and move down to free the blues vassal. a brown 6 stack finds it way upon us, they were in the medieval era like me but they weren't lacking in research like me and had the upgraded units. I just turned my spearmen and archers in crossbow and pikeman after I took the city. But we have them outnumbered and my praetorians are pretty tough. 

When it all went wrong

After we take the city, I ransack it and take it over because I didn't want another city that I was obviously gonna be able to get from the brown. Since they had no Resistance. Marched teo armies down to fight some browns and they were too strong, so I saved scummed and just retreated to my alcove. Ransacked the city built a outpost. Then went to take on the brown army that was marching toward me. After a huge battle we destroyed their two six stacks, at the cost of the cavalry. Thinking the worst was over. I noticed that the blues vassal was now a regular city and see the blue army coming up from the city. So i figured they took it back. As I march my army back to our little alcove of safe haven and get ready to take the other city I noticed something.......something really really bad.......I wasn't paying attention again and the tides have turned.....THE BLUE LOST THE WAR AND ARE NOW THE VASSAL OF THE BROWN!!!!!! *This is when he knew, he fucked up* and browns armies we're coming for me! I am now fighting the entire continent!

In the thick of it

I went to battle with the browns two stacks and through some save scumming and luck I was victorious but I lost a pikeman. And then two more stacks came for me. I retreated one of my armies and moved the other out of reach. (Thanks to the Aztecs movement and movement tenent) I was able to split up the brown army. But one of my armies was now away from retreating. I had to use money to upgrade some of my praetorians to great swordsman and heal wounds to survive. But I didn't have enough to heal everyone. The retreating army got caught fighting the blue and the other two were picking off some brown survivors as they were spread out enough to retreat from me. Picked off another brown army and one in retreat and my retreating army best the blue as they were still stuck in classical era. So I combined my men and at the out post and waited to upgrade my units. 

The retreat

So I know had some breathing room and one army had three great swordsman and another had one. Got healed up and right when ie as about to fight the brown city again, they had two more stacks coming from it and one from the blue city I original took. So I was basically surrounded. I went to engage buuuuut they now had guns! So we lost and I saved scummed and saved scummed but nothing worked. I had no chance at winning a straight up confrontation and not all my units were healed. So using our movement speed I was able to break through the army on our right flank and went past it to the blue city I originally wanted.ee took it from the blue and prepared for an attack. I finally got enough money to upgrade my units and I now had a a fully upgraded army for the medieval era. I was close to a war victory with all of our victories and brown wouldn't make a white peace with me. I had to win, cause if I didn't I would have to adopt their religion. Yeah that's right, I screwed up and didn't refuse the demand cause I thought it was gonna be a easy victory. Anyways, brown had three armies coming for me but two were slightly ahead of them. I attacked the two stacks ahead and one retreated. The second also retreated but i was able to catch up and they were close to the third. So I fought these two brown armies and luckily only one had a gunner. I was in a favorable high ground position and was able to fight them and win. Then the brown accepted surrender and I took my original goal and some territories around it. I some how won.

Sorry for giant post and while I did save scum I wasn't gonna save scum far back enough to not do the war. I consider battles a puzzle, just gotta figure out how to win. But holy moly was that a tough fight and I almost lost my army. If I wasn't able to retreat then I would have accepted defeat. Luckily I was some how able to fight my way out. I now know how Napoleon felt going into Russia and how Julius Caesar felt when he first went into the British isles. Game is definitely much much hard now lol great jobs devs you made the ai better.

edit: unfortunately I didn't have saves of all the battles. Only the first one was I able to see the whole thing. Unfortunately most of my save scumming was with autosaves and not real saves. The last battle I was able to get one of the armies to retreat and was able to fight off the two that didn't. Trying to recreate that battle and I wasn't able to get the army to retreat again. I think what happened is I got to the front army before the third army was able to get in place. So upon reloading the save they were already in place and I was unable to get the retreat. Also apparently not all my armies were upgraded like I previously thought lol the 4 stack still had praetorians lol

Adding them in now, Unfortunately I didn't save on most battles. Apparently I just used the autosave for them. I did my best to get positions though.

Oh and forgot to mention somethings. Thank you guys for fixing the crossbow and guns line of sight. It is a massive improvement. Also I liek that I was able to use the praetorians instead of swords men for the romans and getting them early. Really felt nice playing with them. As for the aztecs. I would like their EU to also have the same treatment. Would be nice to have jaguar warriors as a upgrade instead of being forced to make new units. Would have really helped if I got jaguar warriors instead of greatswordsmen.