AI cleverness break points

[Arcain_One]

In the wiki it states that the AI gets more intelligent at diff 7 and even more so higher than that, but I would like to know the specifics. Watching the release notes help some but seldom tell me about the tactics. My biggest question is aside from strength and number of ships is there really a difference in the tactics between a diff 9 and a diff 10?

[snelg]

I believe you'll see a few more nastier types of guard posts/guardians etc at higher levels (and just generally more of everything).
I also read that special forces tend to avoid your planets on lower difficulties.

There's probably a lot more but I haven't really been looking into it.

[Mánagarmr]

I think "cleverness"-wise, the AI is at its full potential at diff 7. It just gets progressively stronger after that. More waves, bigger waves, more nastiness and so on. But it's full "brain" power is on at 7.

EDIT: My engrish is bad.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, that's the idea: at Diff 7 it's no longer intentionally stupid in any way.  Anything higher just adds more "strength", not really "cleverness".  There could be something I'm missing, but that's the idea.

For instance, the bit added in 5.036 where the AI now considers how many entry points it has into human territory when deciding how long to wait "building up" a wave was intentionally made for diff 7+ even though I was mainly concerned with higher difficulty play at the time.  It doesn't give the AI anything more to work with, just makes it use it more efficiently (in theory).