So I'm trying to play a single star map, Centrifuge. I put the Advent on Hard Researcher. And the Vasari on Hard Aggressor.
I'm playing as the TEC. I used colony frigates to establish mining in the uncolonizable asteroid belts since the AI seems to ignore your mining operations there and thus I don't need to make efforts to defend the territory.
I also turtled on my home world and established significant defensive structures to assist my fleet when the AI brings larger fleets into my territory (allowing me to hold them off and buff up the experience on my cap ships)
To this end I noticed a disturbing situation. The Vasari kept their massive fleet in the planet to the east of my homeworld. The Advent kept their massive fleet in the plasma storm to my north.
Neither seemed to ever bother utilizing their fleets against one another, despite the fact that I had one planet and they controlled the remainder of the map.
So what is the point of having a "team 2" and "team 3" if the AI is going to just gang-bang the human player anyway? And don't bother telling me I needed to be more aggressive and expand early, I realize this. My issue is that the AI seems to "cheat" in that it isn't going to war with anyone but me.