why do some AI races start with a bunch of tech's already researched...?

i assume you play twilight of arnor, each civilisation has different tech tree here and more or less different starting techs. also, each civ can complete their own specific galactic wonder (i guess it's techtree dependant which one) that is very cheap and not avaliable to others.

Also, depending on what research rate that you play at (i.e. slow, normal, fast, etc.), the Altarians can be one of the most powerful researching civ's in TA. It all depends on the distribution of the bonuses that you get at the start of the game.

BTW - zarith makes a very good point - some of the civ's on TA have unique techs that they can research very fast (i.e. Temples for the Altarians and Drath) - and some of the civ's unique techs take forever (i.e. Spore Weapons for the Korath).

Sometimes, however, you'll see an AI that has a tech, unique or not, that usually takes a very long time to research, but they have it in the first few months of the first year. If that's the case, then one has to assume that some Creativity Bonus was appplied either from a previously researched tech -such as the Arcean's War Rooms - or the AI got a Creativity Bonus at the start of the game. The options for how the AI got a certain tech or certain amount of techs can vary quite a bit. There's also a possibility that the AI went crazy on the Research slider and maxed it out or got very close to 100%. This can give anyone, human or AI, an incredible boost in the Research department.

Hope this helps to answer your questions. Best regards!

~ Cypher ~

Also, some races have super abilties which starts them off with a number of tech advances already acquired. E.g., Dominion of Korx are Super Traders, and start off with all Trade tech's researched (including Master Trade.)

 - Alan

wow, i did not know having super trader means that for the AI, does that apply to the player if i play as Dmoinion of Korx with super trader ability?

All techs researched at the beginning are available to whoever plays the race-AI or human. The same goes for abilities like super-isolationist etc...

Yes-Super Traders start with all the trade technologies (barring the neutral specific one, IIRC), in addition to a bonus to trade-I believe it's 50% but it may be 100%.

Also, for what it's worth, trade is useless for income.

I keep seeing reading that trade is useless for income, but I find it to be quite useful.  Could it be a result of galaxy conditions?  I have fewer habitable planets, so it seems that trade becomes a significant part of my economy.

Yes; fewer planets will make it more valuable.  It's still useless, though, unless you're running uncommon or rare.

I only use trade for the diplomacy bonus.

Yes, that would be why it's useful for you. In a galaxy with more than a hundred or so planets, trade doesn't do well because it doesn't scale with empire size. That, and it's really easy to disrupt. One war, and your entire income is gone.

I'd place it around 60 myself, actually.  But obviously this depends somewhat on how many AIs you have ingame-less AIs mean you get a larger piece of the pie and lower the threshold for planetary income to outpace trade income.  On the other hand, less AIs means less wars, so less risk.