Yeh totally strange about the Thalan. It isn't as frequent as the poor Drengin but many times I see the MASSIVE Thalan home planet and...that's all. Gonna switch up the personalities for sure (I too use the modified tech trees) and see where that goes. AI personality 10 is bugged, which AI uses that one?
I'm doing better getting longer games now by increasing map size, turning off research/ascension victory and a few other things. The only problem now is that the AI personality differences are a bit too dramatic. The Drengin, Thalan and a couple others NEVER expand and get steamrolled by the Terran/Altarian (main offenders) every single time. So then 1 AI rolls through the entire galaxy and becomes a juggernaught to which no one can stand up to. I think if the problem AI civs would expand
I definitely agree to disable the tech victory but what about the others like alliance? Will I come across games (immense maps plus max civs) in which several AI ally (good alignment for example) together and another set of AI (the evil AIs) form their own alliance and everyone is going at each other? So far I barely see any alliances unless I form one and then I just wipe out whatever race doesn't join...game over before too long.
I'm new to GCII and enjoy the game so far but I keep running into a problem. All my games end before researching the later techs. Regardless of map size or slowing down/speeding up the research rate, I find that I get medium hulls + planetary invasion, take over some planets and then typically win the game afterwards before even getting larger hulls. If it is a small map, I can just conquest, influence or alliance victory. If it is a larger one, I can win via research. I never see the lat
