It's interesting to see how many differences there are in our respective lists. Maybe if enough folks post I can generate some kind of averaged consensus at the end, it might even constitute useful feedback to SD.

i've found how well different AIs do depends a great deal on a number of factors. i'll add those in the end, but here's my list:

very strong:
Drengin
Altarians
Krynn

good, not great:
Torians
Korath
Yor

mediocre/ hit-or-miss
Arceans
Drath
Thalans

usually pretty bad:
Korx
Iconians

i don't know about the Terrans because i haven't played against them more than once. based on that game i'd rank them as good, not great. i've found in some cases i get the best results when i pick their bonus abilities for them. i've played games where i give the Korx and/or Iconians a +20% or +30% boost to their economic resources, and they still do poorly. they might establish large empires, but they turn quickly to, ahem, a "McDrengin happy meal" (nice line Legacy).

the Arceans do very well with a mild boost to their economy and their aggression turned up just a bit. the Thalans seem able to establish a large empire early on, but it's hit-or-miss as to whether they manage it well or not. the Altarians seem to do well because of their super ability; i'd be interested to see how well they'd do with a different one, or with fewer good players.

the Krynn seem very good to me. they tend to play similarly to me: they wait patiently while they establish their civilization across the board.

i can't really tell much difference between the drengin and korath AIs, except that the korath are a little more war-hungry.

as i mentioned, some of the AIs seem to do a lot better if i pick their bonuses for them. the torians do well if i buy them the +20% planet quality bonus.

i'd be very interested to see how the different AIs would play in more controlled circumstances. i did several test games on this for DL, controling and regularizing number of planets, boarders, etc.

I'm going to agree with your assessment so far. Believe me, I wanted to prove you wrong but couldn't!   

Starstriker: Have you played enough games to give us a sort of overall, general feel for how the enemy AI's do in your game? Not that your current experience (especially a strong Dominion of Korx) isn't interesting.

The strongest AI players varry, depending on who has the closest borders to me, however, as a general rule, the Arceans and Dregins (yes Dregins) usually fall early to other AI players before I'm ready to go on the offensive

this is true; i found the best way to deal with it was through custom maps. but that's one thing i really need a GUI for, and no map editors, AFAIK, have been updated for DA (the only additions are asteroids and planet environments).

Here is my 2 cents - I am relying on my GAL Civ 2 experience since I always use custom opponents in DA

Superstars
* Altarian
* Arcrean

Has a Shot
* Thalan
* Iconian
* Torian

Thanks for coming out
* Terran
* Drath

Wet Noodle
* Dregin
* Yor
* Korx

I have noticed that generally the Evil races usually get gutted pretty quickly, usually becuase they just can't stand each other enough to form alliances.

Dano

Brad said he is going to write some documentation explaining briefly the differences between the different AIs. I have tried to keep the aggressive personalities in line with Superwarrior, and the crafty ones in line with Super Diplomat and Manipulator, but I haven't really seen a trend. Again, even with Custom races my evil creations tend to get stomped, and the good races do very well due their tendency to hug each other and forge alliances. Of course I always try to make sure that there are a decent number of Good, Evil and Neutral races. If there was only one Good race I am sure they would get slaughtered as well.

Dano

Wow, I sudennly love this post.

I decided to keep track on my last game:
I generally run medium sized galaxies (little time)
I play a custom race.

Strongest:

Drengin
Korath

I've never had Drengin and Korath in the same game. It's either one or the other and they dominate.

Strong:

Kyrnn
Yor (I was pretty involved with them, might have upped their strength.)

Oddly, the Krynn usually have get the crap beat out of them in many of my games. Ususally by the Korath or Drengin. I rate them strong because they are never wiped out. Never surrendered, Never completely taken over. Usually down to a system or two, and somehow, they hold. It's really odd.

Medium: (Survived to end game, but still not a big player)
Terran

Weakest:
Korx (early surrender)
Drath (wiped out by me + Yor)
Thalan (taken over by Korath)

I have to say, in memory, the Torians and Thalans tend to be the causalties in my games.

Wild cards:

Altarians
Iconians

I haven't had enough games with them (random oppenents)to really notice a trend. They seem to either do really well or to do really bad.

I concur. The Mandalorians I created I figured would be perfect for an alliance with the Drengin...but it never happens. While they seldom declare war on each other, they can't seem to stop themselves from declaring war on everyone else (although in my current game, the Drengin didn't declare war an any but minor civs until I paid them to go after the Altarians and Terrans).

And...the Mandalorians just might have won the current game without the galactic plague hitting them. They just withered away down to nothing, and tried to invade worlds with less than 100b troops per troop ship--needless to say, they didn't capture many worlds.

The other big problem they ran into was they over extended themselves. They had a superpowered navy, but couldn't afford to replace the losses, while the other civs were churning out cheap low tech ships and slowly but surely wearing them down. Capturing a planet just for the tech steal was critical in getting tech that had pairity with theirs.

I tried to fix thier economy problem by taking lower levels of some of the military abilities and putting it into economy and morale ability bonuses, but it didn't seem to make a difference. When I captured their planets, it was obvious they just didn't have the infrastructure to support the advanced tech on their ships. I wonder if they didn't start those wars out of desperation because they were running out of money? Granted they did take alot of worlds, and very fast, and if not for that plague....

Very intresting thread. Glad to see I'm not the only one with (oddly) wimpy Drengin.

I'm only on my 3rd game of Dread Lords, but so far I have to say:

Torian - Strong simply they multiply faster than rabbits. They were in two of my three games.

Drengin - Extremely weak. They may start off building a strong fleet, but their weak economy eventually becomes thier downfall. In the two games the Dregin were in their empire simply became a non-factor by the middle of the game. At that point I befriended them even though my alignment is good so that when they surrender, they would surrender to me.

Altarians - Okay. They can hold their own and maybe expand a little bit, but they haven't been a serious threat.

Thalan - Mediocre. No a serious threat at all and peaceful towards most races except the Drengin.

Arcean - Weak military and weak economy.

Iconian - Mediocre. Same as Thalan.

------------

All my games are played on a huge map with abundant habitable planets and 5 random races. 1st game was set to normal difficulty. Afterwards I set the diffculty to challanging.

That's just trippy denyasis. I'm beginning to wonder if there really is any pattern to be pulled out of this, or whether it's strictly a matter of setup and environmental variables.

Of course this is further confused by the fact that it may be the racial abilities, rather than the AI, that's resulting in great performance under certain circumstances.

Ah to have the time to study this properly.