Well I have been playing the latest version of the beta, on challenging (more on dif settings in a sec) I am playing an immense map and have encountered some issues that really seem to make it an unfair advantage to the player(not the A.I) .
#1 the anomolies :anomolies respawning sounds good but once you realize the A.I ignores them you realize that simply building a few fast surveyors nets you a enormous advantage by the way of the added +1 's in econ ,ship hp,morale,ect... that each anomoly nets you,now this does not even stop there. add in the occasional +25% to your tech research {especially on late game techs}will always pull away from the A.I in terms of all of the above .
solution would be to make A.I again place importance in anomolies, also change the +25% to a tech to a point bonus. because there is a big difference in +25% to universal translators and +25% to black hole gun.
#2 new race emergance. now I dont mind the races popping up from time to time but you need to create them with defenses . for example in the current game i have had dread lords pop up right in my territory. and same turn since they were so close and had no ships protecting them ,i immediatly conqured their planet in the same turn.
then the vegans come along , and upon speaking to them i see they have a bunch of end game techs . whereby i trade a bunch of crap ships and techs for all of it then on the same turn i conquer their homeworld because it was undefended. so essentially you gave me like 12 end game techs for one measly troop ship
#3 make war more costly to pay a civ to start. i cannot stress how undervalued a war is in the A.I mind. it is way too easy to just pay everyone to fight each other while you tech yourself all the way to godlike proportions
more to come . i got a list but kid is crying so igotta go for now. feel free to leave your dumb a.i expl;oits that need fixing