How's the AI?

The AI plays rather well. In the short time ive been playing the game they have taken me down without fail. And they do give you chances to be friendly with the missions they occasionally dish out. I havent gone near hard yet so i cant say how aggressive they are then, but they have taken out my attacking fleets easily enough and quickly decimated any unguarded colonies i put up on normal.

I came to soase from GalCiv 2 also, and the ai compares very well. Allies are actually helpful, and enemies like to fight.

It's smart enough to know how to conduct hit-and-run strikes, much to the irritation of these forums which are crying for a phase-jump nerf. It apparently sucks in 1v1 maps but when I played on a 3-way FFA it got tougher.

The AI is pretty good. Unfortunately it won't fight you unless it is sure of a victory, so most of your time is spent chasing them in circles around solar systems. They need to change that about the AI.

AI is suprisingly good. I'm not sure what others are comparing it to but I would rate it quite high. Ai is very difficult to do well. I was suprised not by how tough it is (cause AI can do 100 things in a second, I can't) but also how well it plays at times. I need to try hard because I have gotten good enough at beating medium now. there is room for improvement but I have no serious complaints.

As to running away and phase-jumping, I would do the same thing online so I don't get the complaint. Split your force up into 2 or more parts and surround outer systems at the phase jump edge and wait for them to jump to their death. It's good to be able to run away whether you are human or AI.

I've played four games solo against the computer. One alone and three with an AI buddy, and I agree with everything that's being said.
1) Bot opponents won't hesitate to hurt you. You have to be able to split your fleet and manage a roving defense.
2) Bot allies haven't been great at direct intervention (e.g. they show up when my planet's getting whacked), but I've noticed a definite willingness to pile on! So, if I am launching an attack I am not surprise to see my AI buddy show up a little while later and join the fracas. Allies also seem adept and carrying their weight - expanding and distracting some of the opposition. One interesting whisper I got from the bot was something to the effect of, "Go pound on the homeworld of the guy who's pummeling me!"
3) It is difficult to force an engagement when the bot is outgunned. While this makes tactical sense, from a playability perspective it means that there is no war of attrition or pause between harassing raids. You chase them away and as soon you leave they come right back at no real expense since nothing (much) needed to be rebuilt. There are some technologies that allow you to slow down departing fleets, but a) 3 out of the 4 games I played were decided before that tech really made sense to pursue, and there is opposing tech that cancels it out. But, it might be possible in larger/longer games to create a sort of "tarpit" or "roach motel" system with lots of phase inhibitors and a waiting nearby fleet...

AI is very good on hard...yes he tends to run alot but thats not too bad...i dont want to kill his main feet too fast..

if any they should make another AI which is better then the hard AI.

About that, do phase inhibitors effect stack? You're talking about the buildings with area of effect right? i was considering building a few of those together but i though the effect wouldnt be added

Totally agreed, The AI is great but it should know the difference between when it has been beaten and when it can recover to come back for a later fight. Simply running around is annoying and wastes time better spent on a new challenge.

Perhaps the AI could decide based on some formula revolving around:
Current force + total remaining planet value + remaning unclaimed planet potential(.1)
compared to human players total value, with a possible forfeit result? There is a point where things are simply unrecoverable and running around is nothing more than annoying.

I've been playing 3v3 on Maelstrom a lot the past few days, with locked teams so I don't have to deal with the inane missions, and all AI set on hard random. In every game, each AI masses two fleets, one with just a ton of siege frigates, and the other with just a ton of the basic attack frigate and some cap ships. This occurs the entire match, even when I'm roving around with an uber-fleet of 100+ ships. So... I'd say the AI still has a lot of work to be done. But I have faith in the devs - just wish the AI was more sophisticated from day one.

The AI has been decent from what I've seen. There's definitely room for improvement, and the removal of some cheap tactics (not the hit and run, more the 'hey, this guy just took his main fleet away from his base...want to double team him even though we're not allied?' behavior) but it does put up a fight.

Perhaps it's from playing in the beta, or maybe it's just that the AI's not meant to handle ultra-defensive players like myself playing on maps practically built for them (woot for doppleganger) but I've yet to have any problem beating the AI, even when two team up against me (and I just killed the third :P). The AI seems to be far better than the average player in the early game (which is where defense pays off) and not all that smart in the late game, like most RTS AIs. If you can outlast it you'll find one of two things, either it'll have a huge varied fleet and nothing around it's planets, or no fleet and decent defenses. Either way it's not all that hard to finish off the AI in the late game if you bring enough ships (and if they run it means another planet for you to conquer ).