The old AI wasn't particularly good. Playing versus modern AIs, or actual people, is an entirely different experience!

It's not broken just because your opponents are bad.

Tower? heck take a group of villagers with your army. Build castles in enemy territory as you capture it! (or maybe bombard towers) That doesn't mean the game is broken though.

I also always felt it was broken in many ways. But that wasn't actually a bad thing. In some regards it was fun because of that.