I was wondering if this was a common issue or just a result of playing in small or tiny galaxies... Whenever I play a game in those galaxies, the AI does quite a bit of initial exploration with their scout ships (as expected).  However, once the AI reaches a certain point, usually a couple of years into the game, it just parks the ships in some remote region of the galaxy and never seems to touch them again.  I have seen this behavior on sub-normal to intellegent.  Its not a big issue obviously but seems a little wierd.  Can anyone explain it?