My armies have a terrifying and debilitating fear of victory.

[GC13]

There are limits to how many armadas a race can support, yes.  They don't have an economic burden per se (I've suggested it, but generally we're trying to avoid mechanics which let the AI tie itself up into an ineffective knot), but they can't just go on building forever.

The AI can't be set to consult its personality type (how pro-war they are in general), look at the solar system (how many threats / juicy targets it sees) and decide on an appropriate amount to allot to fleet maintenance?

[Aklyon]

I'd noticed that in an observer mode thing once. the Acutians accumulated this massive armada of armadas and mil-outposts, then eventually just stopped building ships entirely until they attacked things.

[keith.lamothe]

There are limits to how many armadas a race can support, yes.  They don't have an economic burden per se (I've suggested it, but generally we're trying to avoid mechanics which let the AI tie itself up into an ineffective knot), but they can't just go on building forever.

The AI can't be set to consult its personality type (how pro-war they are in general), look at the solar system (how many threats / juicy targets it sees) and decide on an appropriate amount to allot to fleet maintenance?

I imagine it could, and at some point I hope we flesh things like that out more.  Our concern at the time was that it would either allocate too little and have no effective fleet (for no readily-apparent reason) or allocate too much and make no progress in anything else (for no readily-apparent reason).

[GC13]

Well, it works for now. I just think fleet maintenance would, at some point, be a good idea to deepen the simulation a bit. That way the Burlusts could be represented as potent in a fight, but ultimately suffering from a weak economy that can't really handle longer wars. Or however it was meant to work.