[Q]

I agree with you that the game against the AI can be both fun and challenging. Otherwise I wouldn't continue to play this after all the years!!
It is more that in some situation the AI is just stupidly unflexible and you can't change that because it is hard-coded. Just a few examples of potentially fatal flaws:
- The AI will never scrap a facility to build a vitally needed facility like space port or space yard after it lost a colony with these facilities.
- The AI will not react to rebellions/unhappiness of the population.
- The AI will not attack the enemy core systems, only the contested border systems.
- The AI will send colony ship after colony ship to planets they won't reach alive or within reasonable time and at the same time ignore nearer empty planets (due to lower values).

That is my hope for SE V that we can improve the AI and make it more flexible.