One other thing, if you play a race but do not really integrate its mega-ability into your grand strategy, try turning off mega-ability entirely.  If nothing else, it will extend the Colony Rush period some, as the two races which start with certain extreme colonization techs will not get them.

Then i may as well stick with Terrans and leave mega abilities on! Because the Terran mega ability is not playing any part in the game at all except to silently help correct the massive rediculous AI trade imballance. Also at higher difficulty levels the AI will be taking extreme planets right on the heels of the first colony rush... with almost no break at all! (even with mega abilities off).

If the Terrans are at such a huge universal advantage over everybody, nobody would use anybody else on the highest difficulty levels.  Yet they do use other races and other super-abilities.  So while Terrans have a huge universal advantage for you, they don't have a huge universal advantage for everybody.

That's just how the universe works.  Super Diplomat matches your skills, talents, and tendencies better than the other super abilities, and as such, you are not able to leverage the others as well as you can Super Diplomat.  Other players may not be able to do much with Super Diplomat, but are able to leverage abilities like Super Breeder or Super Hiver in ways that keep them from needing tech trading so badly in the first place.  Maybe their economy is so strong that they have less of a tech disadvantage to need to make up, or maybe they expand quickly enough that they can produce enough ships to overcome a tech disadvantage with sheer numbers, or maybe they just attack so early that the AI hasn't built a huge gap yet.  But while you are looking only at what you lost, you are refusing to look at what the other super abilities gain.

tl;dr version:

Just because Super Diplomat is so much stronger for you doesn't mean that it's so much stronger for everybody.

I usually play on suicide using a custom super breeder with tech trading turned off, and use the all factories strategy.  I have never built a Military Starbase and have long since given up on Economic Starbases; plus I don't use the Spin Control Center.  Early in the game you will far being given the AIs huge bonuses.  The way to level the playing field is the keep the AIs fighting each other and claim those galactic resources each time an AI at war frees up one.  Those bonuses will help you stay in the game with the AI.  You can develop your planets much better than any AI can and eventually be in a position to start attacking the AIs and grow your empire.  You can also make much better use of your fleets then the AI, choosing to hit him where he is weak.

In the original DL I found the first strike advantage to be to power and lobbied on the forums to have it removed.  A human could use it to easily crush the AI.  Back then engines were smaller and cheaper so human players built fast ships that could fly circles around the AI and ensure the human always had the first strike advantage.  In ToA the Aceans lack the speed to make best use of their first strike advantage.  I have played a custom super warrior on suicide successfully.

I also play on medium maps as they are much more challenging than small or large maps.  On tiny/small maps you can rush the AI.  On large/huge/gigantic/immense maps the colonization rush lasts much longer.  This causes the AI to cripple their economy rush buying to develop their many worlds with small populations while I develop my fewer quality planets.  The larger maps also give you more time to development your planets and research weapons/defenses before the first AI declares war on you.

Such bonus tiles are more common with increasing map size and increasing number of planets. And I believe additionally luck also plays a role.

Just don't run into debt, that's often the biggest challenge with such bonus tiles...

Mascrinthus -

Yes, Suicidal, I should have said that, too.  I have been able to beat it with simple brute force on lower difficulties.  Can one add a mega-ability to a custom race?  If so, does it require going into the files?  I'd like to try a custom race, but the absence of a mega-ability has been offputting.  I might try it again, if it does not require non-pc-literate moi playing with files.

Willythemailboy -

I thought the bonus tile count behaved as you said, but was not sure enough to comment.  And, if I can get the mega-ability thing straight, I just may try the custom route again this weekend!

Yea i was thinking because it is a gigantic map but with rare stars, it must mean there are allot more bonus tiles to go round. Also i noticed i was getting a few bonus tiles on extreme planets, which i have never seen before!

Yea, I was not prepared for getting bonus tiles on my extreme planets, I usually choose my science capital after i have colonised all normal worlds, and extreme worlds never have anything, so i don't usually give them any consideration at all. So i had already chosen my scientific capital and it was more than half finished when i colonized an extreme planet (quality 18) with two 300 science bonuses! The other planet which had the 700 science bonus was way too small to be a capital, it had only five available tiles!. So i changed my capital location.

Now even with all those bonuses i mentioned in my previous post, the first time round with that map, the AI trumped me again, and flogged all my extreme worlds and would not trade extreme techs with me at all. I had set Arcean up with five diplomatic ability points, the rest on weapons, luck and any leftover would go on morale. But also i used the war party government, because I wanted to boost weapons as much as possible, since weapons goes well with the Arcean super ability, but defences and hitpoints are not so relevant.

So after loosing ALL my extreme planets to the AI, i decided to rerun from the start again, this time taking note of the best planets to colonise first. This gave me just enough of a boost, to just manage to get into extreme techs just by the skin of my teeth! only ended up loosing two extreme worlds, so a very good result. Amazing how much impact a small change in starting out efficiency can have on the game!

Interesting Idea, but i remember from earlier versions of the game that the AI will not sell planets, so i havn't bothered trying it yet?

You might be on to something there because the other day i got sucked in big time with the extreme techs when i finally managed to research one expecting that it will help me trade for another, but no, the AI gave it zero value! Which it often does, including the final stage extreme techs!! This is an increadibly dumb idea, and the logic that they might not need it dousn't cut it since the AI will happily pay full price for weapons weaker than ones they already have of the same tech!

That's not entirely true. In my experience anyway, the AI will NEVER pay for toxic or barren tech, of either level. Other techs depend on how many planets of that particular type are still uncolonized and in range of the AI, or in the case of the second level techs, how many of that type they have or could get.

Huh.  Guess I hadn't ever tried at times like what you guys mention