I was working on a custom map with multiple AI. I wanted some of the AI to be allied to the player, some allied to the empire and some just by themselves. ie. Underlord1/2 = allied, 3 = alone, 4/empire = allied.

I spawned some units using mightyscript for underlord 4 and some units for the empire (both are allied) within proximity of each other. The units were ghouls. The underlord ghouls went feral (ie. what occurs when their controlling necromancer dies) and started attacking everything, while the empire ghouls remained passive.

I wanted to test this further, so I created two 5x5 boxes. In one I put underlord controlled undead (various kinds). In the other I put empire controlled undead (same units as the underlords). The underlord undead begun losing health (as they do in the normal game), but the empire undead did not lose health.

This leads me to believe that Empire units don't update for mood/wage/feed/sleep/etc, while underlords do.

Devs: it would be nice if we could have multiple empire factions so we can utilize the empire's way of handling units, and have them as enemies to each other. ie. Empire1 vs. empire2, they would attack each other as if they were enemies, but their units behave like typical empire units.