The trick to beating Dread Lords when they appear like that is to hit them quickly. If they are next to you, you should be hitting their planet with a transport in 3 turns or less. If they are somewhere else, it may be worth your while to assist whoever is nearest to crush the Dread Lords as rapidly as possible.

which is all well and good if your that far in you have such techs but i got the super event around about the time i had just reasearched space weaponry (so the theories had just become available) i was miles off having a transport ship, and still working on getting the economy straight after the initial fall into debt that occurs within the first 20-30 turns or so.

Plus my play style is usually diplomacy and strong influence over a military one, so with them being completely untouchable via that style of play and not even remotely scrachable at that early stage of the game, as well as being uncontactable.. then throw in the fact i had no idea where their planet actually was even if i could have invaded them, certainly not anywhere close to the visible areas around my colonies that i could find... the game was largely done then and there. i assume they must have been fairly close though as thier ships were coming from to the right of colonies, but the fog of war obscured them and i had no ships but my flagship exploring to go check and thier ship was killing every constructor colony ship, scout shipe tc.. of mine i built, so there would have been no way for me to build a transport and get it to thier world before they shot it down anyway.

anyway the issue isnt really thier toughness, but largely the fact the super event targeted the weakest player as opposed to the strongest (a la moo2) and the fact they were uncotactable when every other species WAS contacting and making treaties with them.