I disagree with the way the OP wants the ai to build. Everybody doesn't play the same or like the OP so the AI shouldn't either. He's presenting an optimum strategy that he uses. The ai shouldn't have to mimic him or copy him. Just because he plays that way the ai should never play the same. The ai should be a  separate entity not a clone. Each should play differently than the next and only the difficuly levels should change the way they play by the amount of advantages they get. Nothing more, nothing less.

There are two settinigs for AI which allow this situation. First: relations settings may go low and AI may declare war. Second: for each stage of the game AI has low priority for war actions and this setting is rather peaceful. So even at war AI remains peaceful and passive.

I would like to see the AI win ... ever, at all, and if it is by magic victory, then more power to it.

I think a lot of it really does come down to map size.

Larger maps contain more shards by definition.

The more shards the AI has, the more mana they are going to have available.

The AI doesn't snake, so I think it really helps the AI to have nobody running around in its' back lines.

If all the fighting is in border cities, then back in the back somewhere the AI can build shards up to 3 mana per turn each without enemy armies stepping on them and making them start completely over.

On tiny maps like I usually play, there are only border cities and no back lines for the most part.  The only way to get a back line is to snake and fertilize nearby ground due to city length.  The AIs don't do that, but I do.

A lot of my advantage comes from having a back line when none of the AIs have one.

They have to take cities from me to decrease my mana production, and it's not nearly so hard for me to reduce theirs.

For that matter, the AIs are really good at messing with each other in that way and I usually don't have a lot of work to do myself.  They just keep each other low mana without my involvement.

Anyway, I think that map size does really play a large part in how much mana players have.

For that matter I think it has a lot to do with how much of every other resource they have too.

If you are playing on large map sizes and you have some large block of physical space that belongs to you, it probably has all the resources you need in it.  If you are on a small map size your little piece of the world is much less likely to have all the resources you need in it.

I have a theory that may or may not be true that how often people CTRL + N varies inversely with map size.  Basically, the larger your chunk of the world is, the less reason you have to redo the starting conditions because you are more likely to have everything you need in your space.

I play on ridiculous, and I've seen enemy sovereigns lose HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of mana after I defeat them in combat (that represents HALF their mana pool).

I'm just wondering why you are seeing what you are seeing, versus my experience. Try playing one difficulty level higher maybe?

Well, I was playing a game on ridiculous with a tiny map and 3 other players and I was holding my own, but on the year 204, the game crashed and I was never able to play another turn regardless of how many times I reloaded.  Pretty anti-climatic way to end things I have to say.

I didn't get to compare mana for obvious reasons.

Sounds like a sound card crash to me, how long has it been since you changed out your sound card or updated your drivers and don't say "I just did that" because 9 out of 10 times it's not true they just say that because they don't want to be at fault and then go and update or change behind our backs. You also must remember to REMOVE OLD DRIVERS. A lot of people just try to update right over them and that will cause issues like you're having later on and later on has arrived. This is also true for video cards and drivers, it you've recently updated drivers or changed cards it could be causing issues from your old drivers if you didn't remove them.

Remember everything is your fault and the way you setup your computer for the most part. Rarely is it the mfg or software developers fault, remember they usually have a college degree for what they are doing and you don't. So, once again 9 out of 10 times it's the users fault not the fault of the developers, learn to optimize and don't think you know it all.....reading is your friend. )

The save  http://www.lifetimeprogress.net/files/SaraiTharana.EleSav 

All the sound options are turned down to 0 or unchecked.  Doesn't mean for sure it isn't the sound, just not the first place I would look.  

I would really be interested to know if people can get past the turn change that happens when the hero is moved 1 square.

Thanks for that.  Though I have to wonder if it will just lock up again on the next technology I research.

I did notice that I was very close to finishing Heavy Armor.  I thought that might have something to do with it.

Or maybe it is only when tech research completion and tech trading occur at the exact same time.  That doesn't happen super often anyway since they only try to trade with me a few times a game and I would guess that I complete techs probably 1 every 6 turns.

I guess I should try and figure out how to opt in for the 1.5 beta, because there might be fixes in 1.5 for the crash that I was experiencing.

Thanks for the info about how to do that.

I tried using the save you posted before and not 2 turns later I had the same between turns crash again.

I had attacked a nearby drake and some pack drakes with 1 move left in the turn.  As soon as the battle was over I had another hard crash when the between turns phase happened.

- Edit - I lied, the crash was when I was trying to pick a level up trait for my defender.  The defender screen came up, but I was never able to click anything.

I changed to the 1.5 beta and I played the same turn that made me crash before and it didn't crash.

I don't mind auto-turns, as long as they don't make me crash.

I played like 100 more turns and still no crashes.

I guess people should play up 1.5 as a stability patch.