hmm, I am not sure how exactly the AI measures the odds. I do know however that it can evaluate the battle capabilty of enemy ships (i.e. cheat by looking into your ships
).
In order to make them more aggressive. Try if raising 'Fleets Percentage of Ships For Fleets := 30' in the AI_fleet file had any effect (set that 100 perhaps). I wanted the original monster to operate mostly alone. For your Version larger fleets might be better. Also the divisions of ships in that file should be altered to make bigger fleets.
Lastly (not sure if that has a big effect) you can try and play around with 'Turns to Wait until next attack := 0' setting in the AI_settings file. A longer wait could yield bigger fleets.
That is pretty much everything I can think of now. An 'always attack' option doesn't exsist to my knowledge. The ways ships and fleets are handled are mostly hardcoded. Only few settings in the AI files can influence the AI behavior in that respect.
Hope that helps,
Rollo