1. Yes, its intentional since there was no real scouting in the base game.
We have changed a lot in how stuff like that and agents works.
For example this makes spies as valid...well spies. If you want to see what units AI army has you either need to get close with your own army, increase skills that improve line of sight or simply use spy the intended way so scout areas ahead of you.
AI does not get any bonuses to line of sight but attacking undefended cities is one of AI trigers, hence why it sort of "knows it". For example having undefended cities near border with neutral AI will make it more likely to invade you.

2. Player and AI have exact same movement range. There is just hardcoded Rome 2 issue, where if army travels by sea and reaches dock, it gets obscene movement bonus, this also works for the player. This is once of the reasons why we can't make transport fleets faster because it then multiplies their bonus once they disembark in port. There are also lots of various movement bonuses you can pick up during campaign, seasonal effects and overall terrain effects.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it.

OK that makes sense RE scouting. I started a new Rome campaign and made a point of using a scout early to see whats going on in Taras and it was a satisfying experience gameplay wise.

Regarding the movement issue, I can see you are right. Before it just looked like buffed AI movement.

What it was in reality was the AI using Taras as a springboard, moving from sea to land and then having massive land movement range.

They managed to go from sea, to Taras, all the way up to Beneventium. Where as my army gets just over half way to Taras from Beneventium.

I guess that's only possible because of the city they have in Italy? If Taras was under my control they would not get that movement bonus?

I think it can be helpful defensively but man it seems like an annoying mechanic. I read you mentioned it's hard coded in by CA. That's a shame as it would defo be something I would want to mod lol.

Thanks again

Correct, no bonus for them if you had Taras.

The reason why whole naval transportation got broken was how CA tried to fix AI in early patches.

Basically in earlier Rome 2 patches, AI was pretty much unable to launch invasions over the body of water as it viewed it as obstacle, rather than alternative route.

They fixed it by making sea into land, with movement penalty. Visually for player its all the same but for AI it all just land with different modifiers.

Now we can sort of fix that disembark at port movement bonus but it would mean making armies on sea 2-3 times slower than they already are.

Ahh ok well that explains that. I suspect its more of a noticeable problem in those first few turns, and at least now I know it I can plan for it accordingly.

Thanks again for all your hard work on this mod, I am having a great time with it.