Playin' painful/crippling (never could go further) it's substantial to permanently fight on different fronts with several races in the same time and once you negociated expenssively peace and try to take a breath there is suddenly a new war upon you from a different race. The key is: don't stop keeping your military power high and work on your diplomacy. I must admit in Dark Avatar it takes a bunch more skills to win...
The difficulty I face in DA is how to balance income and spending, I mean I still couldn't find the best solution to have enough economy and moral in order to bear my military power (let's say to come app. to 80% of Dregins...), I'm still working on it, guess that's why I love this game

.How you guys found the best balance? always trade max.? sell them less significant techs? keep moral higher...