Same purpose, different means. In some of the starting race techs (the ones that give +5 research) it'll comment that some would steal precursor shards to ascend, and that this tech line will put us upon the line of true ascension.
Just wait until you use the free ability points to fix their weaknesses :D.
I usually use information warfare or tidal disruption, for some reason the Drath don't have mini soldiers in their tech tree.
[quote who="qrtxian" reply="12" id="2645535"]The Drath aren't unconquerable... it just takes a long, long time. I once actually found myself in the position of having to conquer a huge Drath opponent (as Thalans, no less) to whom all the other good races had surrendered. Their military was weak and died early on, but it must have taken over a year of game time to conquer all those planets. So that is another good reason not to play with all-abundant or common on gigantic galaxies.<
[quote who="qrtxian" reply="10" id="2642467"] These settings are pretty much identical to my own, except that I leave tech victory on (so I have an "escape route" if things go wrong). I always use occasional or uncommon habitable planets for Huge or larger galaxies as I've read the AI is optimized for a "mid-range" number of planets and so common planets may be an advantage to the player on big maps. Also, I occasionally vary up the difficulty of a few AIs to make them s
I myself usually play medium-large galaxies on Tough, 8 AIs for larges, 4-6 on mediums, common stars/planets, extreme planets set to rare. If I want the feel of an epic game I go Gigantic, max AIs, common stars, Tough, and occasional or uncommon planets. All on normal research setting, mega events on, tech victory off, and minor races set to random.
I myself have seen the Thalans (who sometimes go evil) become insanely powerful in TOA. However, I modified them for my personal use by using ability points to fix their downsides. Namely nullifying the population penalty and giving them additional research. I also spent a point on creativity and luck. In almost all my games the Thalans end up grabbing an above average amount of planets in the colony rush, (no doubt due to their insane industry) and then afterwards go on a war path and conque
