Is this problem only present in Twilight of the Arnor, or is the bug in Dark Avatar also? I ask because I have DA, but have yet to encounter this particular problem.

I went back and played many more games on Gigantic maps on suicidal. I have noticed some problems/bugs the AIs have. Maybe someone else has the same problems. The only mods I did is change my miltary, social, reseach % etc.

Thalans - The Thalans have a problem during/after the colony rush. I noticed that all their colonies have 0 military, 0 social, and 0 research. The Thalans are bankrupt and take a long time to pay off the debt, they like to build too many expensive factories during the colony rush. After the colony rush the Thalans are busy paying off the debt while other races are catching up, this is where they drop down to 6th-8th place. After they are finished paying off the debt after a little bit they need to pay off more debt again. It seems around 66% of the buildings on their planets are factories. A fix might be to give the Thalans a "One per planet" factory on the techtree (Torians' One per planet factory?) early on and move the manufacturing matrix factories techs back. A second suggestion might be to make the a new building with weaker stats than the Hyperion Matrix "One per planet". The AI should try to avoid building the Hyperion Matrix in their capital. Would it be possible to add an exception line to the building so the AI doesn't build it in its capital.

Altarians - In one of my games (let's say Game X) the Altarians had no attack ships/miltary for 2-3 years after the game started. They kept researching hulls, think they had huge hulls but still no weapons. Altarians like to research new hulls too much in my opinion. They had 30-40 planets. They are usually rank 7th in my games. In one of my games (Game X) the Kyrnn kept researching factories they had 60-70+ planets with industrial sectors and had nothing to build. They have yet to research any weapons tech to build any attack ships. Same thing for the Korx in my Game X, but forgot what the Korx were doing/researching.

Terrans - Never play games with Terrans before. Their tech tree in my opinion isn't very good. Only one unique Innovation Complex. The rest of the techs are shared by other races.

Arceans - I think this race is handicap/doesn't get the same bonuses as the other races. In all my games they are always rank #10, last in population, economy etc. Description saids they have a strong military but they don't. Other races can colonize around 50+ colonies they have around only 10-15. This is such a big difference. In the 2.03 update notes it saids they are more aggressive at colonizing.

I think they have always been affected by the "colonizing bug". The bug started to happening in my games a few days ago. The AI would stop launching colony ships from its planets the starport would get filled up. Once in a while 20 turns? it would launch three? colony ships from its planets. Below are the races that are affected in my games, it's starting to be annoying. Drengin, after a while Kora, sometimes Yor, Korx. The Dregin have a serious problem than the other races, they stop laucnhing colony ships after they have 7-8 colonies. I turned cheat mode on just to see and it seems the colony ships do not get auto launch from their planets and do not go to their rally points properly.

Torians - Always rank #1 in my games early - mid game. Their race usually have 200+ billion population with such a high economy. Using colony chips to move my population I can get maybe 40 billion population compare to the 200+ population during the early game. Description saids they have "weak research" but I see them building lots of research colonies because they are very aggressive at colonizing. I did noticed some glitch, the colonies that the Torians colonize later they stop building any structures, not even a starport. They have 8 bil max population on these colonies and all tiles were empty except the Initial Colonies. It was around 20+ empty planets when they had 70+ planets.

Iconians - One of the races that are balance, depends heavily where they start. But their "Barter Station" markets not being able to auto upgrade to "Merchant Emporium" is annoying when you have to go to every colony to remove the old market and build the new one.

If they are 4 times more powerful than anyone else you must not be playing with the torians and iconians. I like having races i can't beat it gives me something to strive for. If you want weaker thalans customize change their tech trees to torians. they start off with an industrial bonus. don't forget to have them waste their time building warships instead of colony ships by making them evil and militant

I've never seen this exact behavior, and certainly not from the Altarians, but I'm fairly certain that Race Personality 8 (the one used by the Terrans, Drath, Thalan, and Krynn) is hard-coded in DA to focus on researching bigger hulls early, at the cost of weapons. The Drath never do well in my games, but the other three routinely build dreadnoughts armed with one low-tech weapon and some early defenses. It's a semi-effective strategy until the other AIs get bigger hulls as well.

It varies a lot from game to game, but in my overall experience in DA, the Drengin, Torians, Arceans, Krynn, and Thalan all tend to do well. The Yor are very strong on smaller maps and actually defeated me once, but on large maps they do badly as they don't build enough ships. The Korath have the same problem. The Terrans, Altarians, and Drath tend to be mid-ranking powers at best; the Iconians and Korx are has-beens (although the Iconians are really a never-were as they were pretty bad in DL too).

I haven't really played TOA much, but I'm getting into it now, and I'm experimenting by playing 3 games as Terrans against the same set of 9 AIs (those from the original GalCiv II) on different size maps. It should be a good sampling of how they do.

Surrender Makes you Powerful? I had all of my sectors all fully developed and my neighbors the torians surrendered to me completely putting me into the red and giving me dozens of undeveloped and undefended sectors. Surrendering nations can really screw you up. 

Also changed my play style and the Drath and Drengin are knocking each other out. Playstyle isn't the only factor but it is really important.

Whenever the thalians get powerfull I am ususally in the top corner on the edge of the map. I play on Normal diffculty and they get powerfull. But when I play cakewalk I am the most powerfull. I agree with it is where you start.

FalseDead -

If an empire surrenders to you and causes you such strategic problems, one solution could be to trade/sell unwanted planets to a minor or maybe an ally.  For that matter, you might be able to do planet swaps with another AI to tidy up borders.  Generally, the AI seems to judge value by pop, so a high pop world you just got might be valued more than a recently settled world with better tiles or PQ.

That is, keep the ones that are best for you, either by high PQ, position, or bonus tiles, but divest oneself of all the others and get something in return. 

the humans are the most powerfull on mine. hmmm weird

Well, they use the same personality, so that may help.  I've found that AI 8 is just a monster for expanding and grabbing up all the resources.

Thalans have always been strong in my games as well. In the current game I'm playing, they're number 1, practically neck and neck with Krynn, but Krynn have far and away the most influence, owning half the votes in the UP all on their own. The Thalans don't like me very much, but they're on the opposite side of my Immense galaxy, so war with them is unlikely to do anything. Krynn and I share borders, some of our planets are right next to each other and we're fighting over influence, but even so, we're Close, so even though war with them is unlikely, it has the potential to change the faces of both our empires. However, war with me means not only fighting my army, but the armies of the Drengin, Yor, Arceans, and Korx as well, since they're my allies, an alliance which I have christened The Axis of Evil.

For the longest time, though, it looked as if my chance for victory was nil. I was behind in every conceivable way, the only thing I had was Approval Rating. Then, out of nowhere, a random event called Jagged Knives took planets from every civilization, including me. I lost three planets, including my Manufacturing Capital. I knocked on their Canadian-flagged door and demanded my planets back, and they refused me. They had no military whatsoever, but they had every technology that our races had researched. That was the moment I realized this was the greatest thing that could have happened to me. Most of the planets lost weren't mine, but a lot of them were in my sectors. I could take those planets without going to war with every single race, and I could do so in perfect safety, since this new race had yet to build an army. I could take their planets and steal their techs and finally catch up, and that's exactly what I did.

My conquests yielded incredible results. Many of the techs I took were very, very big, and the planets I acquired were all high-quality. I took back my manufacturing capital. Soon, everyone else saw what I was up to and rushed to do exactly what I did: demand their planets back, then take back their planets by force when the Knives refused, but by then it was too late. I had doubled the size of my Empire, taken over a dozen former Terran, Krynn, and Torian worlds, and had enough planets, trade, and income to start pumping tech. My research skyrocketed. I went from 5th place in research to first, double that of second place, in just 5 turns, and I was making so much money from trade that my taxes were 5%, Approval and Manufacturing was 100%, I maxed out Espionage spending, and I was still making 900 bc a turn. I upgraded every last one of my ships, pumping more than my planets could even hold, and overnight, I became the most powerful military in the entire galaxy. My Empire had become a utopian dictatorship.

But all was not as well as they seemed. We still had rivals. With the Krynn pushing hard with their influence, I would need to do something about them, or be crushed from the sidelines, my military might irrelevant. Worse yet, the Krynn and I were Close, practically allies. If I declared war on them, I would suffer diplomatically, right when everyone was starting to trust me--even the Altarians had started to warm up to me--but I dared not bring them into my alliance, for a War with them would succeed, and they were my one chance to expand my empire and stand up to the mighty Thalans, who still remained the top power in the universe.

By stroke of luck once again, the Krynn made the poor decision of attacking one of my allies, the Korx. I was honor bound to protect them, and in honoring my alliance, I would appear the benevolent protector. They had played right into my hands. My evil knew no bounds. The United Planets would assemble in one more turn. Oh well, those are usually interesting...

The vote that came up was restricting Evil trade. The Krynn controlled over half the votes. My allies all voted no limit, for we were all trading, and they had far too much to lose. Only the Krynn and Terrans voted in favor, for they were the only ones not trading with me, and it was enough. My once solid-gold coffers were now bleeding out. What had been an Empire swimming in money, free of taxation, was now losing 6 trillion credits a week. Almost none of my planets had anything dedicated to tax collection. It would have been wasted credits, since my people weren't paying taxes anyway. I shot taxes up to 50% and slashed production down to 15%. My utopia was collapsing...but my army remained, as does my war with the Krynn, and our anger now directs itself straight at our sworn enemies. We may not be capable of building new war machines, but we won't need any. The Krynn will be wiped off the face of the galaxy, their people forced into death camps, and I'll do it all with only my standing army. They shall rue the day they voted "aye". They messed with the wrong tyrant.

...

Sorry, got carried away there. The game I'm playing right now is pretty climactic, though, and even though I mentioned the Thalans like once, they still are the most powerful empire in the galaxy, they just haven't done anything to slight me yet. I dare not war with them now, but soon I'll have enough planets to fire up my factories once again. Ooh, I love this game. Just got it two weeks ago.

wHEN YOU ALLIED AGAINST THE THALANS WITH EVERYONE WERE THE TORIANS AND THE ICONIANS ALSO TAKE OFF THE ARCEANS AND THE DOMINION OF KORX THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST SETUP. THEY ARE ALSO RIGHT IF WHEN YOU ARE AT WAR WITH THE THALANS DON'T ATTACK THEM.

Whenever the Thalans show up in a game I know I'll be at war with them, either because they colonise half the board or they're tossing thousands of their marshmallow spaceships at me. I hate them, but they make decent neighbors once they're pruned back and taught to behave, plus there's all that real estate I didn't have to develop. Mass drivers help to lower the factory count and more useful things are built.

The Korath are more of a problem.

The Yor usually make good neighbors; and the Drengin, if I'm bigger than them they're like puppies.

The Torians are most often the first to surrender, then the Iconians, then the Arceans.

The Altarians are variable, usually they get squashed, but once they touched the God Box and won the game with a tech victory.

I don't see the Drath very often, got dragged into a war with them once and they were pulverized.

The Krynn can also be a problem, on the other hand they've also been fast friends and surrendered their worlds to me occasionally.

The Terrans are OK if you trade with them, once their leader got assassinated and they went to war with me, a big mistake on their part.

The Korx are usually my best friend, but they're a lousy military power. Often wiped out.

On TOA, prior to my modding the tech trees, the game was typically dominated by either the Terrans, Torians, or Thalans, with the Altarians also colonizing on a large scale but usually having little-to-no military - though they were sometimes the source of a "waking the sleeping giant" situation. Following my mods, things have gotten more even:

• The "Big Guys" are now almost always some combination of the Terrans, Drengin, Altarians, Torians, Yor, or Thalans. The Thalans have also experienced some pretty bad games where they don't colonize very well. The Drengin, Torians, and, to a lesser degree, Altarians are usually the military giants, with the first two usually very aggressive. The Terrans, Yor, and Thalans are more laid back.
• The Iconians, Krynn, and Korath are usually middleweights - they aren't the major powers of the galaxy, but they almost never do badly. The Iconians were a genuine superpower once. The Krynn are usually in 3rd or 4th place, but I've never seen them at the top.
• The Arceans are crippled by their speed penalty (which I may just mod out) and usually aren't very large. They typically hang on for a while thanks to their strong military, but I've never seen them do well.
• The Drath are more of a thorn in the side then anything else. Their super ability is very annoying, but they don't colonize well and their homebuilt ships are pretty bad - though they do buy other people's ships a lot.
• The Korx, frankly, suck. Their best performances are basically comparable to WWII Italy - a secondary hanger-on to a much larger and more powerful aggressor (usually the Drengin). I don't know what it is with them, but they just can't ever seem to cut it.

Dude, I figured out the answer, the answer is that they got a high income, even though they got a high expense, they'll have a higher income, thats the key thing that makes civilizations powerful, I tested a game, I made a game with Korath (The settings with highest researching skills but lowest income) and the Drengin (The settings with lowest researching skills but highest income) and when I played, the korath took about 9 turns to research their first tech, and the drengin took only 1 week for 3 techs, I also played as the thalan, the structures they build have a high maitainence, but if they don't build them, they will have over 1000bc income, but when they build their structures, they have -1000bc income, I tested it all, the income is the source of all power in the game, with the income, and they are a dunce, with a high income, I just don't get where the income comes from, but anyhow, with the dunce thalan difficulty setting, they will research their whole tech tree by the time you even gotten done with the master trade tech. THE INCOME IS THE SOURCE OF ALL RESEARCH AND MILITARY. Your welcome. I always have alot to say. High researching skills, high military skills, high social skills, garden of death tech tree, all in together, they are gonna wipe existense worse than the terran allaince is, and I got another question once again, was the invention of the Terror Stars the reason the Thalan want to stop the terrans from building? IF the answers in the ToA campaign, I'm gonna need help getting through, I'm stuck on the mission where tandis gives you the arnornornian cruiser and you have to wipe out the yor from the quadrant, any help?

Re: various comments on this thread about the Drath, I have found that they aren't up to much at winning the game but play "in character" probably the best of all the races. They always seem to use Super Manipulator very well while avoiding getting drawn into wars they can't win, or at least get out of unharmed. On a recent game as the Altarians they became a steadfast, if not particularly useful, ally despite only having four planets for the entire game, and when I won a tech victory I made sure to return Altaria to them before transcending spacetime as we know it.

Qrtxian - what tech tree modifications did you make to make the Drengin play well? I have been trying to make some changes and have managed to get the Korath into the top four or five, but the Drengin so far are failing to live up to their fearsome reputation. When I have time I'm going to post my thoughts & work in progress over on the modding forum...

Arceans are now quite strong in my games after I modded out the speed penalty and switched Cathedral of Valor to a Super Project (as mentioned in the thread for Tolmekian's mod, which I have yet to try but am curious about).

Thalans - they're just these guys, you know? They seem to get by, somehow, and usually make it to the end if I don't conquer them, but they're far from the strongest.