I just had my first victory on Tough/Intelligent.
There was an event that gave me all the technology of the others.
So I suddenly got some really awesome guns and could wipe out the only race, that was not already friendly towards me.
Might have won it anyway. If you start a game with 2 neutral civs in it and you are quickly making trade-routes with them, they most likely will like you for the rest of the game.
So Alliance victory is still somewhat easy to achieve.
