This is similar to the ancient proverb, "Skill is when I kill you, cheating is when you kill me."

The thing is, where are MY really point? Where are MY army groups?

I hope people rise up with me and complain when beta 2 hits.

Just make sure beta 2 has that AI. I am tired of killing retarded people. 

You can make the UI changes for beta 3.

this

I happen to be an expert at stopping a large force from attacking my territory. I will build outposts between my cities and theirs. Those outpost will only serve to allow me to cast strategic spells as they move in on me. I doubt your AI will be able to make decisions about whether or not to stop their armies and wait for Tremors to wear off. If they leave units behind I can pick them off with my mounted armies. If they wait and only move forward after the spell is gone, I can better fortify and pick off the outlying camps. If they make it to my first city I will defend it for as long as I can and then raze the SOB. I will continue scorched earth until they reach my capital. Then I will use raise mountains to buy some time and regroup. I will be healing in a city and they will be stuck in the wild. As soon as I heal, down comes the mountain and I let the final battle be fought in my most powerful city. 

Then I counterattack and capture everything. I will have some really high level units by then. I may lose up to three cities, but I'll have their whole nation and two capitals. 

I scorch the earth to prevent them from healing when I use my city to do so. I am assuming this force is smart enough to do so. I am also assuming that in this scenario I have weaker or less units. Letting those cities survive would also mean those heroes you mentioned could come back to the fight in the final stage when I let the mountain down. I plan on assassinating most of their heroes and sending them all the way back to Capitarland. We Tarth will have levels more experience from this defense and will be able to overpower their weakened heroes. If the AI was really going to threaten my cities, I would just wall in my territory as I did in WoM. The only opening would lead to Capitarland. That is what I will call it when I rule it. 

Can't wait to play you in MP Tasunke. I wonder how that would play out. 

*Folds Hands*

Or not. Not after playing AI Wars and realizing that having competitive AIs sometimes mean reinforcing what AIs can do well and humans can't (to compensate for what humans can do well and AIs can't).

Forum QQ posts about how difficult Brad the AI would be a good thing.

[edit] I think more forum QQ posts about how difficult Brad made the AI would be a good thing. Now, if normal is too hard for the casual gamer, fine, tune it down but please ensure the harder difficulties make me want to come here and cry like a baby.

Anyway, just to reiterate - how great would a feature like what Brad highlighted be in ANY TBS?  There's a lot of logic to be considered, but I'd love something like that in elemental as much as civ5, as much as any other TBS I've ever played.  Of course I want to send my SAFE military units somewhere that they'd be useful.  Can't think of any game that has done that for me in the TBS variety.  I'd be super excited if elemental was the one!

edit - direct answer to the op - no, I don't think its cheating.  I am fully able to do the same thing if I take my time.  If you want to compensate for the human factor, make the AI "forget" about sending some troops from a city.  I'd rather see the magic I suggested implemented, though.

Why not let the AI do some thing we can't.  We can do some things it can't, like load and try again.  Oh, wait.  Maybe the AI tries to do that too -- is what what is going on when the game crashes?       Are the unloadable save games the AI's calculated counter to my make-it-didn't-happen cheat  ?  

Galciv let us do this. I am glad it will make an appearance in FE.

Give us rally points and "time to destination" on the overlay path then. It's features that should be in anyway.