[jowe01]

Thank you , Sun Devil, but I have already extensively played around with these items. By and large, they do not help much. If you reduce the numbers of turns to wait until next attack and increase the number of systems to defend, the AI's attacks often only get more fragmented and have less success chances. What I would like the AI to do is to emulate human behaviour: build up a decent fleet, than attack a system. Follow up on your attack until you (may) face significant resistance. Withdraw behind Last warpoint/to next large & armed planet and dig in. Repeat as necessary/possible.

That kind of behaviour has to be hardcoded.