One of the high points of the game is that
1) AI doesnt cheat, has same interface to the game as player has
2) specifications are public, meaning you can write your own AI dll

These are excellent features and I think we at GGS should try a simmilar approach. I dont know how rest of the civ developers community think about this. I checked, and from what I see, there is by now only one alternative AI for C2E. Isnt this strange?

Once in civ3 forums someone said that they dont really want civ3 much, just civ2 with modifiable AI. Well c2E is exactly that, so where is the rush?

I imagine there are two reasons for this:

1) good AI is difficult to write
I know that. So where are the crap AIs?

2) programmers that are interested in civ genre are already "spent", ie since everyone has a civ project he works on, there are no free coders left.
Well, I dont really believe this

Also, if you check CTP2-AI forum you will not see much traffic there. If I understood correctly, CTP AI is pretty modifiable due to powerful SLIC language, etc.