The Terrans are always smalltime in my games , to the point I disable them if not playing with all, or stick them a level higher on difficulty. The Thalans actually surprised me last game by being the second power. I'm not sure if they would of been had the Iconians not kept the Drengin busy though.

Interesting. Assuming the AIs were balanced (big assumption...I see no reason why developers should deliberately make all races equal!), they must have been balanced mainly at some particular setting.

I play without tech trading anywhere from crippling to suicidal. No tech trading in particular I could see having a big impact since it wasn't in the original release.

Hi!

Terrans and Thalans...do they ever win?

Always, when I play them.

But yes, I noticed that, and already complained about. In most my games (crippling or maso) Drengin crush one neighbour very soon, grow biger, and keep on crushing the rest of weaker neighbours, growing to unstoppable size, until I hit them . They also seems to have big bonuses in research and economy, as they usually have BIG advantage in warfaring tech (weapons, hulls, invasion), despite they invest LOTS of founds in warships, and have only Xeno labs or Research centers on their planets.

The AIs that don't go to the war of conquest, stagnate and (if they aren't big) are eaten quite soon. The usuall early victims are non-militaristic good-oriented civs (Drath, Iconians). The neutral ones are more lasting, at least I've seen Humans and Arceans last for quite some time, despite not being big and neighbouring big bullies. Survival of the rest of AIs seems to be very dependent on the economy they get in the game. If it's good, they do good, if it's not good, they sooner or later got eaten by some bigger neighbour of the opposite alignment.

To conclude: I'd do some more AI ballancing, or at least include some algorythms in AIs to respond better to their neighbours. Like:
- if my close neighbour is aggressive and militaristic and doesn't like me (AKA Drengin ),
then I need more millitary power sooner:
--> stop developing peacefull economy and
--> go for warfighting tech and
--> build more warships sooner.
or ask for help other neighbours
--> more trade routes to get better economy,
--> buy/ask for warfaring tech or ships,
--> form defensive alliance.

BR, Iztok

hard to say... I always end up playing the Thalans.

In one of my more recent games the Thalians were situated in the middle of a large galaxy and started getting planets flipped by the Arceans who were doing very well at the time. Then there was a cultural backlash against the Arceans, giving them a huge jump in influence. Needless to say the Thalians soon declared war and pretty much wiped them out. With a little help from me of course. They were doing really well through the game until i betrayed out alliance and wiped them all out before finishing everyone else off.

Sounds like it's mostly just the roll of the dice, then.