Unlike GalCiv II, the GalCiv III AI and overall system is extremely moddable. I'm glad they did that but I'm having a hard time making the AI play the game as well as I'd like.
Whether people like it or not, skill at a game is the result of knowing effective, specific, strategies. You can't procedurally generate a strategy. Some of it needs to be hard-coded and that's where we're struggling because GalCiv III is all about data mining and procedural design. It is much more like a Chess AI than what I've done in the past.
For instance, in Starcraft, I'm a mid-level diamond league player. I have very specific build orders, very specific map control strategies that rely on timing and a very tight control of resources. In GalCiv III, presently, I can't even make a ship focus on a particular type of defense. Heck, getting the AI to not decide to build endless constructors is a lot harder than you'd think.
Anyway, you're not here to read me complain about our own game. So let's roll up our sleeves, we've got years to do this. What I can say is that the AI system in GalCiv III is on a much better foundation than GalCiv II. There's much more we can do. But it's going to take time and frankly, a lot of community help.
What I need form you guys are saved games with an explanation of a strategic error you see the AI making. I don't need help in coding what the AI should do because I can assure you, all those functions are there. It's simply calculating that doing something else is a better idea.
GalCiv II way:
If (transportisnearmylanet)then (do specific bad things to that opponent)
GalCiv III way:
Go through and weight zillions of possible things you might do, sort those weights and execute various empire-wide build/movement decisions.
Much of the work on GalCiv III will be making decisions more locally.