i downloaded dark avatar about 2 weeks ago and havnt played through an entire game yet (im playing, or rather was playing until the annoying fog of war bug, a gigantic map so it takes awhile) my girlfriend however has been playing a medium map and had a really strange problem. it stated that pirates are now roaming the galaxy. thats not the problem, the problem is that the pirates were vastly more advanced at the time of creation and had more ships than everyone in the galaxy combined. we're talking like 10-20 fleets of 5-10 ships each. the pirates went thru and killed every ship, starbase, everything they could for the entire galaxy! and after that everyone just started surrendering to other people until there were only 2 other people left. what i want to know is how the pirates got more advanced and powerful than the entire galaxy combined. it really ruined the game and should never have happened. ive gotten pirates b4 and it seemed more appropiate with just a few ships that were an annoyance but not a threat to my top of the line military fleets. is this a mega-event? i didnt think so but it sure radically changed the game. any thoughts? or anyone else have this problem?