I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't figure out the "Politics" file. I looked at it for an hour, and every time I thought I understood an entry, the next entry would seem to work the exact opposite way!
I'll look over the mod... BTW - I posted some thoughts about the AI to the SE4 forum on "eGroups" (
http://www.eGroups.com/Messages/SE4) a few days ago - y'all might want to read that forum as well (if you aren't already).
Good point, Talenn; the AI seems to beat up on neutrals pretty quickly already (I have a game going that started with 7 regular computer players and 5 "neutral" computer players, and 3 of the neutrals have already disappeared; although two new ones have also appeared - I think the AIs are using intel ops against each other!!).
Of course, I don't think it's necessarily out of line for the AIs to go after each other - and "playing it cool" doesn't work if the AI is aggressively seeking opponents. The only solution would be to stay bottled up in a few systems, which severely limits your ability to build infrastructure. And, if the AI use of minesweepers gets fixed, (back to the QUALITY of the AI) it'll be much more difficult to defend those systems...
One Last thought - when the Mega-Evil Empire factor kicks in, the AIs should probably make treaties with each other to improve resource/research/etc; I don't think the game is set up that way right now, but it's something to think about...