[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by PeterD:
Keeping up with tech isn't a problem, what can be
is watching the AI pass over my colonies without
attacking.

I've checked out AI's after 150 turns and they
all develop decent empires and build lots of good
tech ships, what they don't do is attack well.

Its my one hope that in SE5 the AI is more
agressive.

If you want aggresive games, then, for sure you should play small galaxies against around 3 TDM AIs , High difficulty and High bonus.
If you want more aggressivity, then, select AI vs Humans. Sure, this kind of games could be boring after play many of them... but in the other hand, think is the best way to get a challenge.

One of the worst problems with the AI (think), is that has problems to follow an strategy and select the right planets (systems) to defend and the right planets (systems) to attack (we, the modders, can't help so much here).
Playing into small galaxies, this kind of problems are not so important (does exist less choices!).