Emergent AI in Fleets

Kind of skimming the top of the Curated Internet today, but I saw this article on how the AI in the game AI War: Fleet Command. works. The title of the game is apparently to make up for the game's weird graphics, but the article from one of the game's designers may be very interesting to those of you currently developing games; looking at fleet command from a bottom-up approach rather than an entirely top-down command path.

Article here.

Litcube, I need your help.

I'm looking for a game, something a that you'd consider a reasonable successor to the Pax Imperia and Master of Orion franchises. The kind of thing where one finds oneself managing a ridiculously large and complicated galactic empire--I'm finding myself in the sort of situation where I might need to shut my brain down for periods of time fighting big old space battles and planetary insurrections. Because of certain strategic choices made by the makers of my computer, the flavor of OS seems to be irrelevant. I know that this is one of your many fields of expertise, and hope that you can help.

-Mr. Pony