I just tried out the new patch. In general, I think much has been improved a lot, but a couple of things did nag at me. To see how the AI would play with the changes, I made a game with gigantic galaxy, lots of planets, rather slow research, no tech trade.

I played the Thalans (computer players at intelligent), but I just observed really... uncovered fog of war and then stuck with a single planet so I wouldn't get in the way of the AI's and let them fight it out.

My observations:

- the Terrans and Drath did rather poorly in colonization phase... they didn't build colony ships sometimes for long periods of time when there were still plenty of planets in their vicinity unsettled. Also, I saw both of these races discover a resource and then send 5-6 constructors to it when they should have built colony ships

- Drengin and Yor also seemed a little slow in colonizing, but definitely better than Terrans and Drath

- the Arceans and Torians are really very good at colonizing now, but combined with the other races' problems there, they now seem to dominate most games... I kind of hoped for a level playing field among the AI controlled races

- I once saw the Arceans build huge numbers of Transports... they were in a war alright, but they didn't have space superiority in their enemy's territory, and just parked all of them

- A disproportionate number of the AI players seem to research the beam weapon line... only now and then an AI players goes for missiles or mass drivers

A lot of thing look very good about the patch (like the AI ship designs and research efforts for example), but I think there are still some problems that should be looked into

Thanks @ Stardock for your efforts into improving this great game!