Good suggestions for me to try out. Thanks.
I liked Bonscott's kitten pirate so much I had to find one for my pic too.

Argggggggg

Many Americans have this funny way of intentionally destroying words/language/culture because "uh'm 'murican, uh'n do wutevur ah want".

As to the original poster's complaints...are you serious? Go play Space Empires V if you want to see horrible (default) AI. This game has some of the better, albeit unpredictable AI I've seen in a 4x game. The only real problem I've found with it (which has been mentioned many times already) is the tendency of the AI fleets to bug out at the first sign of resistance. A simple boost to the aggresiveness here would be a vast improvement. Problems with defense ineffectiveness, etc are a game mechanic issue, unrelated to AI. If it's really that much of a problem for you, play against real people. That's where all the fun is, after all.

I agree with you totally, despite being an Aussie; note, however, that the person you are quoting said "many", which certainly does not mean "all", and it also doesn't mean "most".
Otherwise, yes. On a slightly more off-topic note, I just get sick of it when everyone, even some Americans, it seems, has this attitude of "let's blame America for the world's problems".
Never mind me

To be entirely honest, your use of "there" is incorrect. It should be "their".
And what of NATO? And the expletive swear word shouldn't have a capital. In terms of language, it's almost as if what your quotee said was partially correct.

But I agree that the U.S. is without a doubt THE stabilizing power in the world. And then people go ahead and insult Americans.

Hello. Stop the nation bashing please. It's pointless. Oh, and don't thank the U.S. for Guantanamo, thank Bush and Cheney. That's why we have elections, to change direction.
Anyway, go start your own anti versus pro U.S. thread and you can talk there. This whole forum/bulletin is about a game not this diversion.

Play on the large maps (multiple stars, or 1 star but 40+ planets), 4+ AI on hard with pirates, teams unlocked. You'll have a great (and difficult) time.

Awesome (and challenging) game in my opinion

Konnichiwa again!

at the start of a game, leave the option for teams unlocked
in the next screen give them teams as you like... in the long run you will loose possible teammembers cause their missions are generally "destroy x ships/structures of player b" ... most of the time player b is an ally/peaceful with you or its on the other edge of the galaxy, affording at least one interstar-jump
after some time, if you are unable to do this kill-missions they will be as low as 0% happyness. somehow it seems in the background, the AI's form own alliances against you. most likely you will have 3-5 enemies going for your planets at that time, depending on your work with pirates you will have another one.
the bigest problem on big maps, especially with more then one star is, the AI has time to build up while you pound one enemy into the ground they send their big fleets after your planets, beeing out of range for a fast strike into their territory