well im playing a new game(havent played since 1.1 was released) and i noticed that on the simple or beginner the other civs just dont expand. before when i was playing on simple or beginner i always had a decent race with the races to get the good planets and a keep up a military. With 1.1 and 1.2 im running on normal and they still dont start to really spread outside thier starting location until 3 or 4 years into the game and by that time ive already gotten a good 1/3 or 1/4 of the gal. I always start with humans in abundent everything, tech level normal, huge map and only possible wins are alliance or conquest. I am also a green thumb and industrious. The only changes in hardware that i have is i upgraded to 1G ram since before i could run a map past large.