How to setup a rudimentary AI for my game?

I want to set up a starting block for my AI, so that I get some basic functionality. I just got to the stage, where implementing a rudimentary AI is now one of my next steps. I got basic framework built in my game and I need something to "populate" the game.

My game is a strategy game. It has got stars that each have their own coordinates, fleets that orbit around the stars and fleets can travel between stars. But fleets can only travel from star to star. Each star has a maximum travelling range. Fleet on the star can only travel to stars that are within the max travelling range.

I want to create an AI for non-player empire. That AI would have to at least move around its fleets randomly (move them around in its own territory and/or move them onto mine). I plan on making the AI variable based eventually.

Which means that each empire has personality and stances towards other empires. Personalities include agressiveness-passiveness, honor-deception and etc. Stances towards other empires include disposision, balance-of-power, etc. So for example agressive empire attacks those whose military power is smaller than theirs and also attacks those whose power rating is rapidly rising, to eliminate possible new threats. Honorful AI would require justification to launch campaigns, meaning that it will not attack anyone without provocation. And honorful empire almost never will end any pact's it has made and will never form pacts with empires that they have low disposision twards to. But decietful empire will form any pack that is of use to them. So that decietful empire might form a military-acess pact with the enemy of his ally should that benefit it more.

But the above won't be added in any time soon. So, give me pointers to make a rudimentary AI and if possible, in a way that greates a small stepping stone towards my goal.

And any links or reccomendations about further learning about AI are welcomed. Or if you think that I could pull off similar result eventually in a more effective way, you are welcome to share.

Random choices seems like a good place to start.

struct Agent {
  Action pick_action(std::vector<Action> const &actions) {
    return actions[std::rand() % actions.size()];
  }
};

Now write whatever code you need to in order to make this AI work. You need to be able to determine what the AI's available actions are and how to execute them.

Whenever you want to replace this dummy AI with something more reasonable, you may want to pass a view of the game state as well, or you may want to beef up the `Action' class so it contains enough information for the agent to decide which action is his favorite. This will naturally lead you to a utility-based AI architecture, which is my favorite paradigm for AI in general, and which lends itself very well to implementing personalities.

Random choices seems like a good place to start.

struct Agent {
  Action pick_action(std::vector<Action> const &actions) {
    return actions[std::rand() % actions.size()];
  }
};

Now write whatever code you need to in order to make this AI work. You need to be able to determine what the AI's available actions are and how to execute them.

Whenever you want to replace this dummy AI with something more reasonable, you may want to pass a view of the game state as well, or you may want to beef up the `Action' class so it contains enough information for the agent to decide which action is his favorite. This will naturally lead you to a utility-based AI architecture, which is my favorite paradigm for AI in general, and which lends itself very well to implementing personalities.

I can understand your point, but I can't understand your code. I only know Python, so can you explain that code a bit?