deimios

Tech victories are not terribly difficult. The hardest part of them that I have seen is getting to the point where you can form Alliances with the most powerfull AI char's and the AI's that are bellow you in military strength won't attack. It takes some forethought and planning to build to the point that a tech victory happens, especially if you have smart AI char's. The times I shoot for tech victories over military usually I get war declared very quickly, so its really not something I focus on

I've won in 1.31 via alliances before, it was on a gigantic set to tough. I think I had all the AI char's in the game as well. I kept things low key and waited as the stronger "evil" and "good" AI fought and killed each other off, then went after the strongest AI with a vengance for getting to close. Focusing most of my trade on them along with consistent "gifts" of tech and money helped. I checked the Reports every single turn until I saw "close" and then started offering them ships, tech, and