So, why is this terrible AI behavior still not fixed after 2 expansions?

i think the way way combat works, it doesn't really help if you have overwhelming tech ability compare to the AI. What i mean by this is that if you have reached the end of all 3 offensive branch techs, but the AI can dominate you militarily in terms of sheer numbers. It does not take much for a single ship to defeat a sizable fleet that are weak in terms of fire power. But as far as offensive goes, i find the AI to attack in fleets of 2 to 3 usually.

What I'm talking about isn't even tech related, it just makes strategic sense to defend your planets using a fleet (more than one ship) instead of one at a time orbiting a planet. There isn't much you can do to offset such an extreme tech difference, but your chances are always better within a fleet. I've been having fleets take more damage when I fight the enemy in groups (even 2 ship fleets), versus fighting them one at a time.

Well every time a fleet attacks a planet with defenders that don't fleet together, it loses one movement point. The defenders therefore act like speed bumps, no matter how rubbish they are.

The orbital fleet manager is a two-edged sword because although defenders will fleet up to repel the attacking fleet, they might not even survive the first fleet to attack. Also, for it to even be useful the enemy has to attack that planet.

Even assuming that the enemy does attack that planet, it would also be a far more useful planetary improvement if more ships could be parked in orbit. At the moment the only way to get more ships in place before an attack next turn is if there are some sitting idle on a planet nearby - which begs the question, why aren't these ships in a fleet fighting off the enemy before he gets a shot at said planets?

IF (big if) the AI is specificially not grouping these ships simply to "slow down a fleet" like that, I guess that could be a tactic. Kinda doubt it's that smart though. I've seen a large number of ships just get picked off one by one before.

Had they grouped up into fleets and attacked my SINGLE fleet all at once, they would have at least taken a large ship out or caused some severe damage. And with the large number of movement points my fleet had... it only delayed me a turn anyway.

So if the AI is doing this as a delaying tactic it still needs some improvement on the way it calculates whether it'd do well in a fleet battle. Interesting point though.

well, there are probably some players that could do without that, but for me that's prett much the only reason why I even dare to start games at Obscene/Suicidal.
I find that with all the bonusses the AI gets at those levels the AIs tend to build really sick ships.
Esp. at Suicidal the miniaturization-bonus coupled with the insane research capabilities lets the AIs build ships that sometimes are able to destroy whole fleets of my ships.
If not the AI would be rather stupid in the regard you described....at least I wouldn't see a way anymore to beat it at that level

But yes, from a logical pov it's quite stupid

The thing I hate the most about the current AI, (I havent played 1.96 yet though) is the fact that some races are just really really weak. The arceans and the drengin got some really poor AI and always come out at the far end of the stick in every game I play.

The arceans especially just seem to NOT expand at all.

in any given map, in any given size + settting, they just bluntly refuse to expand.

The drengin are just always mediocre, in any map. Mediocre at best.

I agree that the waythe AI handles your invading fleets could be better. When I'm at war I know that once I've destroyed all of the ships ion space I'm home free; even though I've only gotten something like 30% of its military. So when the AI decides to declare war on me becausei'm so weak I only have to hold off their invading fleets. It just shows that the military rating doesn't raleey show who is more powerful or who will win the war. I may come across another fleet or two after the initial onslought but not many. Then its just planet hop until they have no military at all. Losing maybe one large ship per planet sice they may have a few battleships in orbit.

I've seen AI simply leaving a planet it can't defend. All ships are launched and flee. As to defense on orbit.. Arceans prior to ToA were using fleets for defense, and actually had empty squares on well developed worlds.

And to Fluxx: Drengin are strong in every game I play. Although lacking bit at the start when Torian rule supreme, later they catch up and their constant wars improves their military even further. Maybe AI uses my customization to Drengin as well, dunno, but they are always strong in my games. But Arceans are really falling behind with their horrendous penalty and AI's inability to research engine analogs in timely manner.

It is easy for a human player to defend his/her planets using nearby defensive fleets to intercept the SLOW attacking AI fleets.

If the AI began using SLOW defensive fleets to protect its planets then I would add engines to my attack ships and transports to just go around them!

Since the AI will never be a match for a skilled human player when it comes to tactics, the best thing would be for combat ships in orbit of a planet to auto-fleet (thus do away with the need for an Orbital Fleet Manager) but not ships without weapons. That way the attacker could not pick off defenders one ship at a time and the defender could still build cheap empty tiny hull defenders as speed bumps.
Attacker Advantages are Exploitable!

In GalCiv2 ToA I've noticed some AIs building defenders with defenses but no weapons! If you want to block a non-armed transport it makes sense to purchase a cheap empty tiny hull defender; adding defenses without weapons won't stop even a weak attack ship and just adds to the cost of the defender!

Letting orbiting ships fight in fleets (groups the size of fleets max, not more) is a workable solution that I don't see any problem with. The orbital fleet manager is stupid anyway.

BUT I don't think it'd be useless if they used fleets to defend their worlds. At the very least it'll weaken your attack ships because of a need for more speed, and prevent all of their ships from being wiped out too easily. But assuming they have at least a few fleets, they'll probably at least get to inflict some damage on you eventually. Maybe fix the problem with their fleets being so slow relative to their enemy's, or just have them use more fleets offensively.

In regards to the Arcean being weak, I completely agree. They are not nearly agressive enough in expansion. I found them to be much better in DL.

In regards to the Drengin being weak. I do share a little of the concern expressed above, but I don't mind it too much. I think that the Drengin are weak partly because they get into so many wars (which suits their personality). Not only do they start wars, but because they are evil and have crappy diplomacy others are prone to attack them as well. Personally, I have found that if the Drengin are allowed to attack another race early-to-midway along without interference then they will typically conquer that race and therefore have those new planets which makes them stronger (assuming the race didn't surrender to someone else). I have found that if folks don't start ganging up on them then they could be a real force to be dealt with. However, everyone does typically go to war with them (at least in the game I have played). I don't know about the rest of you, but I do get a little nervous when I start next to the Drengin -especially as an ethically good race (usually the Alterans for me). I know that I have to be prepared to be attacked.

My thoughts on the issue.