Not a problem for that battle, but when the AI is spamming stacks, a second and third battle that turn will be fatal. In Attila, on anything like a fair fight, I am typically going to leave the battle with my spear units pretty much ground down. And the AI is quite dangerous handling powerful cavalry - they can go for your flanks if you are not on your toes - and missiles (particularly horse archers) are always going to hurt. Compare with say Attila, in that game, cavalry and missiles play more of a role. I am not sure exactly what was going on but I think the primacy of heavy infantry works to the players' advantage because heavy infantry requires less micro (where the AI shines). But in gameplay terms, it was just see the enemy's shield wall - hold it and charge it in the rear with your cav. In ToB, the modelling of the battles was close to flawless, imo, from a historical accuracy point of view. (I've umpired PBEM campaigns in RTW and MTW2 way back, and that was the only way I could keep my players on their toes.) On the battle map, I tend to find the Shoguns quite tough because the player doesn't have much a technology edge and the Japanese fighting style doesn't seem quite as exploitable as the Western fighting style (maybe cavalry is less powerful?). The only hope for balance is to limit the human's ability to make good losses and to keep chucking more armies at him. The human will keep destroying AI armies. But to give a dumb AI a fighting chance against a clever human player, you need to give it the ability to spam armies. I believe Attila and Shogun cheat a lot more in terms of the AI spamming armies. Shogun II on the campaign map is like a bar room brawl where everyone is wielding knives and broken bottles, and the doors are bolted shut.
I tried Takeda on VH and I was constantly facing invasions left and right. In Shogun II, to be honest, I am scared to try the higher difficulties - the AI is utterly ruthless and aggressive.
On challenge, the AI never really felt threatening in ToB. And you have Alfred the Great, a legendary historical figure, and he just feels like nothing in the game - Karl Franz, summoning the elector counts, has more personality.
Even the end game Norman and Viking invasions etc are nothing compared to the great threatening Mongols or Huns invasions etc in other TW titles. You have a Great Heathen Army overrunning the British Isles, but you start the game AFTER the army has been defeated. In terms of the premise, ToB was really a missed opportunity in terms of setting. ToB just doesn't feel like you are playing in the Dark Ages - it feels bland and generic. You know you are in Japan in the Samurai period, the voice work, the art, the music, the map, everything is just so vivid and characterful. Shogun is a good comparison, because what both Shoguns did really well was the historical flavour - playing Shogun 1 or 2, feels so different from playing other TW. On immersion, it's subjective but the premise of ToB wasn't compelling enough and there wasn't enough period flavour to suck me into it. By contrast, my favourite historical TW is Attila and I have come the conclusion that Attila is great because of its immersion and challenge. ToB did so many things right but my feeling is that it failed two key tests - immersion and challenge.
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