Losing extravagantly

Have been trying to boost enemy AIs (in singleplayer) by sending them fully-upgraded Imperial units as soon as possible.

This has had moderate success. I ran into a problem with a recent game. I rolled Incas; they don't have paladins, so I wanted to restart. But I decided to go with it.

On reaching the Imperial age, I created some trebuchets and sent them towards the Aztec AI that was doing a monk rush (via taunt 230 early in the game). I had also been feeding this AI lots of villagers, so it could reach Imperial age and research Theocracy, so it should have had plenty of gold.

But the AI wouldn't research Redemption. In Castle age, the Aztec monks remained at 55 hit points (no redemption). In Imperial, they were at 75 HP from another four monastery techs, apparently none of which was redemption.

By 37 minutes in, I had six trebuchets waiting around and the AI still refused to get Redemption to try to convert them. This meant I couldn't send in the rest of my army for the monks to convert, since those units would end up killing the trebuchets before they could be converted.

It turns out the AI won't research Redemption because "redemption will lure monks into death so avoid it unless enemy tries to counter monks with siege" (HD Promisory AI). You need at least two scorpions, one mangonel, or one bombard cannon.

Would just like to protest. Converting trebuchets can result in great fun and profit.

#AoE2_DE_goals