My research mods.

[God Emperor]

No probs...
In my mod I have given it a very high priority as the AI is dog-food in combat without them, due to the fact that it doesnt optimise the distance it maintains from enemy ships. This does appear to have been improved in the recent patch for ships on "maximum weapons distance" orders, but, the bottom line is that the AI fights much better with Shields...(or at least this is my observation during play testing of different races).