Problem I'm having, is that so far in EVERY single game I've played, the AI would run / retreat at any time my force that is countering their fleet gets to remotely even numbers. The only time the AI doesn't try to run, is when outmatch my forces to the extreme. The only long actual "fights" I've had, was spamming frigs and cruisers from a few plants to reinforce a defence that is under attack from the AI, while my MAIN fleet makes it's run back to assist. The moment that shows up, they run.

Now, that would be very well and all if they retreated "smartly" - but the moment they start retreating, they loose a few ships on every jump - and if I keep chasing them, they end up with half of their force destroyed by the time they hit their home base and by then, they run even further because they are undermatched even more. Would it not be a smarter thing to do, to retreat to one of their planets with heavy defenses while meeting up with re-enforcements there, getting help from their allies (ie. communicating with factions they clearly allied each other with if it's more than one AI), or even making a stand, and if they loose their fleet but kill 30% of mine, it would STILL make more sense then simply suiciding a couple of ships every jump of retreat. It would mean I would have 30% less of a force much further away to counter with. This applies to all AI difficulty - the harder AI just builds a lot more and a lot bigger ships a lot sooner and attacks in a much larger force.

Question is - is there any mod that addresses this? Is it better on the expansions? Or what am I generally doing wrong there? :