To be fair, I have yet to see a strategy game with a Ai that wasnt stupid in some way or the other. Total War's AI is at least functional. And there's a limit on how much you can do before you have to take out huge chunks out of other areas. AI programming is really hard and takes a lot of time. And at the end of the day, it still follows set patterns which the player can abuse once he catches wind of them.
My biggest issue with the series, since around Empire ToW, has been the subpar Quality the games come out in, before being patched into shape. Paradox also pulls that sh*t, but at least they have the excuse of being a comparetively small studio. But CA has absolutely no right to deliver games like Empire, Napoleon or Rome 2 in the state they were in. Rome was GARBAGE on release. Unoptimized, buggy, slow. The DLC was also really fking lazy, because there are around 3 archetypes of factions in Rome, Barbarians, romans and miscelanous. And for each DLC they just took the standard units of that archetype, gave them one or two special units, and a faction trait. Voila, 10 bucks please. You can get way better expansions via Mods. It's the same thing like with Elder Scrolls. Where the base game makes you lukewarm at best, and has to be patched, modded and whatnot before you can actually enjoy it.
I can deal with Pre-Order and DLC in general, it's becoming the norm either way. But then the game needs to be in top order once it comes out. It needs to be optimized, bugs need to be the exception, and the DLC needs to be something that actually ADDS to the game, and isnt just the same car with a different color.
It would be a boon if the industry in general takes some pointers from Witcher 3 in this regard. But as was established, CA has no competitors in the field. Especially now that it's WARHAMMER Total War.
The only hope I have, Rome 2 was a mess on release. There was a big sh*tstorm and a lot of complaints and appearantly quite a few refunds. I'm pressing my thumbs that they want to avoid something like that again, and thus put a little more effort into hammering the game into shape, before it comes out.
PS: The diplomacy in Shogun 2 was a little weird due to Realm Divide, sure. But I had no problems with it before hand. The AI gauged their strength against mine and usually acted accordingly.