AAR

So, I was playing a game where I started out pretty close to Gilden and a Wildlands. I make a habit not to enter wildlands at all until I'm ready for them*, so I can't really tell you what this one is called, but from what i've seen of it, it is crawling with shrills. Since I'm an Empire and still getting the hang of this game, Markinn declares war on me. Pretty much everything is quiet on the front-- I make a little raid to take out an Air Shrine of his and defeat a little army he sent out to take out my raiders. Tan-ta-kreet is still too strongly  Ominously missing is Markinn himself.

So I basically decide to leave a garrison on my border with Gilden, and go about taming my backyard and finding another place to found a city. Then, lo and behold, an outrageously strong Markinn and 2 more champions come strutting out of the wildlands completely unscathed and take a city.

SHENANIGANS

Given the geography of the game, the shortest path from Gilden to Umber(me) through the wildllands is 6 tiles, and as I'm looking at it, there are 3 shrill armies in that path, as well as a black widow army, all but one of which would either trash Markinn's group or do significant damage before losing. None of these armies are protecting layers-- all but one should have wanted human for breakfast.

Isn't it reasonable for me to expect that a wilderness so dangerous it is legendary is a reasonable guard of my borders? Isn't it reasonable to expect that Markinn's maneuver is not so much risky as it is dropping the soap?

Anyway, I would greatly appreciate it if, in future betas, monsters would attack computer players. If computer players need to be more cautious, so be it-- but when this happens, it's a little ridiculous. And frustrating.