So I'm playing a game (medium, 5 opponents, all AIs set to genius, max aggression and CPU, tech trading OFF, I'm the Thalans) and I'm noticing some weird stuff.
First, NO ONE has researched trade, and the civ I just crushed, the krynn, was apparently ahead of me in tech but hadn't researched ANY weapons tech (they were building 0/0/0 defenders). I'm waaay ahead in military power despite the Yor and Drengin being present - this shouldn't happen on genius. I had no uber starting tiles and colonized a similar number of planets as to most of the AI. Does disabling tech trading nerf the AI that much? Did they waste all their time obsessively researching colonization techs?
I guess I'll try to use the CHEAT mode to see exactly what they're doing....
Cheers
h