I see that the Pirates regularly leave their conquered cities unguarded (easy pickings for me, especially since they are often coastal), whereas the normal AIs don't.
Are the Pirates under-guarding their cities BECAUSE the other AIs leave them alone?
The patch seems not to resolve the issue with barbarian cities. For some reason AI still does not take those cities back.
I think the patch is a right thing to do in general, though, just not a solution to this particular problem in this ticket -> will open a new ticket for handling this existing patch.
will open a new ticket for handling this existing patch.
-> #42778
AI nations usually get completely consumed by barbarians, if barbarians are lucky enough to conquer one city as beachhead. Barbarians do conquer further cities, but AI players very rarely conquer them back. Likely this is because barbarians sell buildings from the cities they have conquered, and that makes AI want for those cities too low.