I have also noticed a major change in the AI's behavior compared to regular Sins.
A few things I learned about the AI after playing the mod for a while now:
The AI, no matter what difficulty, will almost always be ahead of you.
Here's how-
-It will out-fleet you. (Take a look at the ship building stats after a game, you'll see what I mean)
-It will out colonize you (if it has time)
-It will out maneuver you (I always end up getting attacked from behind due to some stupid loophole...see below.)
If you build the same starting amount of ships you would in regular Sins, you will most likely lose when the enemy launches a decisive attack on your colonies. I looked at the production stats the last time I saved and quit a game, and it was astounding. I had built around 40 frigates, 25 cruisers and 2 cap ships in about 2 hours of play time. The AI had around 130 frigates, 200 cruisers and 5 cap ships. I haven't seen the whole fleet yet, but I have a strong feeling I'm going to have to increase my production to even contest the enemy. What I did see was pretty scary though.
The colonizing stats were crazy as well. I had taken about 18 planets, the AI 40! It must have expanded into the next system, because that's just insane. They will also manage to go completely around your forces. This is better explained by telling you what happened to me today. I'll walk you through it. Here's the scenario: Large random multi-star map, two forces in two separate systems as shown below:
O-x-0
Me as the Empire on the right
Normal Economist AI (because the higher difficulties tend to amass such a ridiculous force at my home planet pretty fast in this mod)as the Alliance on the left
Neutral system in the center (represented as the x)
Now I've played a lot of Sins, (seeing as I've had vanilla since it came out) but I've never had the random map generator screw me over so bad. Two jumps from my home world is a wormhole, with an asteroid in between.
At first I didn't think much of it, until it led to the fall of all the planets surrounding my capitol planet. But we'll get to that later. Anyway, I queue a Command Star Destroyer and a few Nebulan B frigates to take the nearby asteroid. After doing so, I see that there's nothing around me I can capture without research.
Two ice planets to the right of my home world, followed by a desert and a few volcanic. So I queue the research for the colonies and set up trade on my two planets so I can expand it later. My initial plan was to just take the entire system, build a massive fleet, then take the neutral star system next door. I underestimated the AI, seeing how I haven't played this mod in a while. This was stupid.
Maybe if I had created more ships to march around the galaxy in two separate fleets this would have worked, but I didn't. The entirety of my forces consisted of this:
1 ISD Command cap ship
5 ISD-Is
5 ISD-IIs
10 Heavy Corvettes
10 Nebulan B-2 frigates
20 Dreadnaught cruisers
I just moved it from planet to planet, taking all the planets on the right side of the system. At this time I had at least 2 trade ports on each planet, and 8 of each research station. I had so many resources that I could have easily bought an Executor, so I did.
I was about to move my ships to the other side of the star, when I hear "our planet is under siege!" I zoom out to find out what was happening. At the asteroid next to my home world and the ice planet neighboring the asteroid, there were 2 separate large fleets. Around 12 MC80 and 5 MC90 cruisers were at the asteroid, and 10 or so carriers and missile frigates. The ice planet had about the same. How the hell did they get in?! I controlled all the planets connecting to the star. How did I not see them? Then it hit me: the wormhole. My reaction: holy crap.
My fleet was no where near the action, and I didn't know if it could take on both fleets when they both arrived at my home world. (which is what they did when the planets they were attacking were no longer under my control.) I had to act fast. Then I remembered something.
The Executor was building on my front line factory, and it wasn't very close to being done, so I built it on my home world instead. This was my only chance to save this side of the system. While they were bombing the living hell out of my planets, I was preparing for the battle at my capitol. Fully upgrading my tactical slots, I set up some impressive defenses: 2 Golan platforms 4 hangers 1 planetary shield 4 repair bays A few turrets and ion cannons Planet hardening researched to max levels
They jumped in just as my Executor was coming out of the factory! 
The defenses were still building, but I had one Golan and the hangers up. The enemy had started bum rushing my planet, with the Executor on their heels. It was crushing their frigates, but those Mon Calamari cruisers can really take a beating. They had bomber support, but the TIE Interceptors from the hangers and the Executor were holding them off.
In a few minutes, they started to retreat. Their fleet had been effectively reduced to half it's original size. They were retreating as such:
| | ^ | |
The lines are the enemy, triangle my Executor. I sent it directly between them, resulting in every weapon system on the vessel to fire. It was quite the sight! My main fleet was waiting in the next grav well, ready to finish of any stragglers. Finally, my ships managed to repel the remaining forces back to the wormhole.
I recolonized the lost planets and set up a ton of defenses there. Nothing was getting to my home world without a fight, that was for sure. After all the defenses were set up, I jumped my fleet to the wormhole to see if any enemies were still there. What I found made my heart skip a beat.
There, in the center of a massive MC90-MC80 force, was a Mon Remonda. I ordered the Executor to move it's broadside to the ship's prow, and the remaining ships attacked whatever they wanted to. There were at least 150 starfighter squadrons in the grav well, 60 or so mine. As the ships closed in, the lasers started to fly, with the Executor actually DRIFTING (seriously, like a goddamn car!) to the Mon Remonda, unleashing all hell upon it.
This was the most epic battle I've ever witnessed. Everything was attacking at maximum firepower, and I seemed to be winning. I managed to destroy everything but the Mon Remonda, which retreated into the wormhole. That's where I left off the save, and will resume play tomorrow.
My point is, the AI in SOGE builds large fleets very quickly without hesitation. If you don't do the same, you may not survive. The onlything that saved me was the Executor, and even with it I lost a considerable amount of ships in that final engagement. Keep expanding, but keep building up a fleet as well. Balance the two perfectly, and you won't have to worry about losing your planets to a preemptive strike.
