[Skyburn]

Well, I had a look at the data files. Not much in the game seems to be moddable, but there are some things that might help.

If the AI can't use nuclear weapons well, remove them from the game.

Increasing unit HP should reduce the human first-strike advantage in combat.

Does the AI build facilities well? If not, remove those, too.

Mod units so they can be built anywhere and the AI might have a better defense setup. In units.txt changing the value on the line "Purchase In Region With Unit Family ID" to 0 for each unit should do it.

Finally, if the AI doesn't seem to replace units well, try increasing the number of starting units. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any separation between starting units for humans and non-neutral AIs, but at least it would give the AI more starting firepower. Maybe they'll be more aggressive if they get more hardware.

A suggestion you might make to Aaron is adding SE style production bonuses for the AI. It would simply be a multiplier selected on game setup. So the AI would get 2,3,5x (or whatever) the resources of human players. I suspect that would be a relatively easy change to make.

Last but not least, though I am sympathetic to your efforts to get this game fixed, I won't be doing any modding or sending support tickets myself. Good luck!