That's strange,in my game on intelligent setting they always have escort class ships protecting them.

I have noticed the A.I not using tile bonus on occasion aswell.

hm usually in my games they sent a pretty strong fleet (or even up to 3) to destroy the plantets defense. if I pull my fleet out of the planets orbit they sometimes stay near my planet or follow my ships in order to destroy them. then usually an undefended transport is enroute. but sometimes the transport has an escort. it also depends on their logistic ability. a transport is worth 5 logistic points so if they got a logistic of 12 they cant add too many combat vessels to the fleet anyway.

I agree, I see the same things playing on "tough" vs "intelligent" AIs.

When I plan to gift an AI some ships I'll fleet em up and send them to one of the AIs planets first, then gift them. They seem more likely to use them when you do this. Even when you do this though they often don't use them intelligently. I've usually send enough ships for the AI to make a fleet and they don't always reform the fleet when they use the ships. I've seen em attack a nearby enemy fleet one ship at a time and die hard rather than fleet up and win.

The Ai does some smart things too, but these types of little things that seem like they should be obvious (like not sending unguarded transports into the heart of your empire that has ships everywhere) shouldn't be happening.

The AI seems to think that if any given planet of yours has no ships in orbit that it's a prime target for an unescorted troop transport. For one - it's damn unlikely that a single transport, even a Drengin, is going to take a fully developed planet. For two, I have ships with high movement rates that can easily intercept anything that's inbound.

AIs seem to do real well with the all too freakin common Ranger gift event ship that seems to happen repeatedly in every game I play. I've got one and several AIs have em, and the first AI that got one has been on a rampage with it, which is good to see - other than the fact that so far in every game this event occurs multiple times and totally unbalances the whole game. Everybody has Attack 2-12 ships with 0-4 defense then boom, a 66/24 ship shows up.

Something I'd add...

In my present tough game, same one that I'd made some observations about yesterday, the Drengin and Yor are constantly declaring war on me...which isn't a big deal...that's what they do even if it's often pointless and hopeless.

At one point a military resource a decent ways off my border became available and I managed to nab it before anyone else (this is a ways into the game, someone else had it and lost it). It happened to be in a rare moment of peace between me and the Drengin and Yor - not that I would've expected them to mess with my unarmed constructors 25pc from home, but anyways. I beefed it up with lots of modules and lots of defense, and some attack.

So, the Yor declare again (after the Drengin declare again, since they're buddies), and they send multiple fleets at my new starbase (since they couldn't reach my planets, even still). Every fleet they send gets annhilated and they barely scratch my starbase - but that doesn't deter them, they keep on trying and dying. They eventually setlle for peace.

I'm a bit irked by now since they waste a tiny portion of my attention span, so I'm not happy with just having peace. I want some tech. They don't argue. I select another tech - still good. I select ALL their tech (eight or more) and text is still green. I start in on their money then. I end getting all their tech and about 500bc for peace - and I never personally destroyed one of their ships and have yet to actually attack them in any way. And they declared on me.

Seems a wee bit odd to me.

So I'm fighting the Drengin too, and again they're sending unescorted transports into the fire, and sometimes they send fleets that are nowhere near the transports that I also massacre. Meanwhile, my overpowered precursor ranger with it's owesome 2pc/wk movement rate has finally reached their worlds (I'd sent it their way in the previous war 20 weeks ago at least) and I have it take out every single one of their starbases and every ship I see - pretty much ruining their empire, especially since they border the Torians who also have a precursor ranger and who everybody is constantly picking on (they're getting some revenge now, it's pretty sweet to see).

The Drengin come asking for peace after I terrorize and destroy everything that isn't a planet - and they too give me all their tech and some money for peace.

Some warlords those two are.

Granted - most of their tech is junk to me - lesser weapon techs I don't need (since I've traded for higher versions or don't use those att/def techs) - but I get at least 1 solid tech out of each.

The point is, peace settlements are whacked. When I want peace and the AI has an advantage they want ridiculous amounts of compensation. And when you have the upper hand, even if you're not even trying, and they declared and attacked, they will eventually give you everything for peace. I can see the AIs wanting lots of compensation if they're seriously threatening you - like I've had the terrans with 3 big fleets within striking range of my homeworld with transports before and I had no hope - and it cost a LOT to get peace - as it should've (although I'd expect the Drengin or Yor to refuse and take planets instead). But when I'm not threatening them at all and don't even care about the trivial war they've declared, the AIs shouldn't be giving me everything they own for peace!