They suck. and the AI does cheat.
I am playing a SP Simu game to check out it;s nuances before getting involved in PBW. Two things I have come across and am only on turn 13.
1> All ships do not move at the same time. I had a single ship in one sector, and a fleet in another. Both were given orders to goto a third sector that contained enemy ships. The enemy ships did not move, probably because of the damage they took the previous round from the Sat battle. If all ships moved at the same time, as stated, I would have had my single ship and my fllet enter combat together. they did not. My single ship did the whole banana. now, I still won the battle, but this is not true simu turns. And battles seem to be ship specific instead of sector specific, which is why it didn't work.
2> it blatently cheated. I had a single ship given orders to attack a colony ship. there is no routing line with attack orders and it show on the ships menu "seek out and attack xx". The colony ship moved 8 spaces and colonized a planet and my ship moved to the location where the colony ship was on that previous turn. Two things wrong here. One, my ship should not have gone where it did, and two, there if no fragging way a colony ship on the 13th turn of a game can move 8 sectors, and colonize a planet (9 movement).
3> The following turn where my fleet was between an enemy ship and a warp point, but yet the enemy ship walked past my fleet, and now mine is in a chase situation. that might be explainable in turn based, but not whe all shipos are suppose to move at the same time. the fleet should have intercepted the enemy ship.
Now, I will gladly ponder any explainations from the community. but right this second I am quite pissed off at the game. And I have serious doubts of ever playing PBW. IP turn based MP maybe. slimeytananus games, doubtfull.