One of my favorite things to do in my world-building process, regarding warfare, is let the battle out of my hands. Unless I have a specific narrative or series of events I want to play out, I enjoy setting up battles to pit AI against AI to help shape the direction of the war. I use Total War and Mount and Blade for land battles, and for naval battles, I used to use Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts (pre-removal of AI commander).

My current world-building project is a sci-fi setting, and I've been searching for a good space battle simulator/game to do so with. I've looked at SW: Empire at War and a couple of others, but none that I've found seem to have a good AI vs AI mode that takes the micro-managing out of my hands.

Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.