From what ive read the thing thats abused the most is the "attack-> peace treaty + goodies > attack ..." cheese so the easiest way to stop this is making a peace tready last minimum 10 or 15 rounds...
I played over 15 games and still the AI didnt reasearch Xeno Ethics, i mean arent drengin supposed to be mean ? torians good ? ethical alignment gaives a big bonus plus it when a played reaserches it it doest even make sense o paick anything besiedes neutral since most of the good or evil bonuses work with the same or opposite alignment ( and AI never have one )
The game also needs an option for only allies tech trading becouse AI tend to trade everythin beetwen themselves, and that why i always play with the tech trading off:D i dont think any of these changes are hard to add and they would make the AI much more "real"