Ahem....AI don't mass you say...

[Nyx]

I've found the AI's expansion is strongly tied to the map. In ancient quadrants, the AI is lucky to get 4 systems. In grids they expand very rapidly. Galactic edge slows them down a bit less than ancient quadrants.

Someone else (forgive my bad memory) posted that he found a high number of AIs and neutrals makes them all weaker. I'd only just been discovering that myself. When there are a lot of them, they get into multi-front wars and can never use their fleets intelligently. Against just one enemy, they fight quite a bit better.

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[Tomgs]

Well my saying the AI is easy for me to beat has to be understood in light of the times I have played the game. I have been playing it since the first demo came out and I have been taking a vacation from working for the Last couple months so I have played it a lot. I don't mean to say that the AI can't put up a fight it can. I have been sorely pressed on some occasions but those times were all when I went in to attack it not when it was comming after me. I do suppose if I played a style that made treaties with it and didn't attack it on sight that it might build up to the point it could hurt me a bit. I just started my first high tech start since the full game came out (that is one of the things I love about this game as many times as I have played it I can still change the settings or my playstyle and get a very different type of game) and they do make some tough ships to fight at this level of technology.