Upping the difficulty would be a good start.  The devs are working on the AI and it does have a lot of potential.  The improvements in 1.2 are pretty good compared to where they were before.  

I play exclusively on godlike (suicidal) and am working on new challenges.  Mainly going for the Steam achievements, but tweaking the game settings helps.  I've only played the insane map size once and have found it to be less of a challenge, even on godlike.  The AI players do well in the beginning of the game, but tend to fall apart later.  The larger the map, the longer they have to lose their teeth and start drooling.

I hope you can have fun with it while they're working to make it better.  Good hunting.

Aren't  most sales of a game in the first couple of months?

So improving the AI to a smaller and smaller audience at somepoint makes no sense.

And if the AI can't handle the base game what happens when you throw in DLC's and all the new toys?