neilkaz
I tried a game with that spy race in my mod. The positive traits were uni government, +20 spy, +1 farm, warlord, trans dim, stealthy ships, omniscient, LHW. Negatives were repulsive, uncreative and PHW. I made these choices because I expected to make up for uncreative with the spying, the PHW because I needed a -1 trait and it's not usually a problem, and I wanted fast, stealthy ships early to get a jump on expanding without the AI seeing where I was going.
It didn't end up being the blazing success I had hoped.
The techs I could research left out a lot of important ones. No improvements in the fields of production, research, pollution, spying, fuel cells, money, terraforming, and shields for both ships and planets (but in some tech fields I had one of the later techs). Specific techs lacking were gravity generator, cloning center, subterranean farms and probably a few other necessary ones. On the positive side, I had a good selection of beams, missiles, bombs, computers and hitting specials.
When I saw the research potential, I figured OK, good with ships and I can make up the rest with spying (getting started early) and the occasional tech from a leader. I got lucky early with leaders providing spaceport and automated factories and +20 income. But the hyperspace beast arrived about turn 60, just before my first colony ship was due to complete, and stopped movement for about 20 turns, slowing early expansion. It was around turn 120 that I finally met some of the others and got deutrium fc (through another leader, luckily).
Started spying right after and got a tech (cyber security link) on the first turn.
I was spying on Humans and was getting a tech on average every 3-4 turns. Soon after that, the Elerians attacked a choice planet (natives) and took it with a titan. I had expanded instead of built up a fleet so I could contact the AI to gain needed techs by spying and that natives planet turned out to be one expansion too far which sealed the course of the game.
That natives planet was too good to pass up, even though it was exposed and a likely choice target to the Elerians. I only had 2 farmable planets, besides my home, and they were still with low pop. The only farming tech I had was hydroponic farms, so my home was providing food for everybody. It was also my 2nd main production planet, of only 2.
I probably should have abandoned the game there, but I thought my luck might hold. It didn't.
The problem was my planets were all either radiated, toxic or barren, with 1 each arid and tundra. They were maxed out in pop at 5-7 and I had no terraforming. My production rate was pitiful with only auto. fac. and no way to cut pollution. I had 2 planets that could build cruiser size within 12 turns, the rest took that long to build a destroyer. Then there was the lack of money, my low pop planets and lack of stock exchanges meant I was already running in the red before passing the ship limit. I could barely keep up with costs at 50% tax. It took forever to build ships and I couldn't build very many. There was no way I could afford to build any transports for invasions. I was also behind in tech and my ships were no match against the Elerians who was building titans when I could barely squeak out cruisers.
The Elerians took the natives system and one other, but then went after monster planets. I thought, cool, I got some time to catch up (if I can luck out on spying or leaders) and the monsters will take a heavy toll on the Elerian fleet (they were dragons).
Turns out the games cheats in monster vs AI battles. I didn't know that. In the mod I beefed up the monster weapons, and dragon breath should have been able to see off titan sized attackers, 1 per battle round, and the 8 phasor eyes were capable of destroying cruiser sized ships with 1 shot each. The Elerians attacked 3 dragon systems (this was a very nice galaxy for monster systems) and the most they lost was a destroyer and maybe a frigate. Their titans and battleships all survived.
The AI vs monster battles must be programed like AI vs AI battles where the computer roles a win for one side and gives the winner the system without any real battle. In the case of monsters, the AI makes a token force large enough to tackle the monster and wins automatically, otherwise they don't go there until they have the force. I've never seen an AI go after a monster or the guardian with a fleet and lose. They always win if they attack. In the mod, monster weapons are much more powerful, but the game still runs the program like the monsters are the same in monster vs AI battles (not vs human, the monster weapon boosts are very much in effect), so the monster boosts I made don't have any effect on the AI and they will send a much inferior force to the monster and still win with only token losses.
Back to the game. What I needed to survive was pollution processor, terraforming, stock exchange and robotic factory or robo-miners. I did finally manage to spy stock exchange, but it was too late to make much of a difference without terraforming to increase the necessary pop base. I stole gauss cannon very late, but discovered that upgrading a single cruiser would take 20+ turns at my strongest production planet.
The end came as a one-two-three punch. First one of those wandering space crystals approached my home system at 232 (5 turns to contact). Then at 235 Antarans were spotted headed to one of my outer systems (only a frigate, again in 5 turns). I had 4 cruisers armed with 7 assault shuttles each and I decided to take a gamble on capturing the Antaran frigate and hopefully some much needed tech superiority. So I sent them of to intercept the frigate. At turn 237 the crystal attacks the home system. I fought it off with 15 interceptor armed destroyers, losing only a couple. Then at turn 239 Elerians attacked my home system. I beat them off, but lost the bulk of my ships and was left with just 6 destroyers there. After the battle I saw the Elerians had a titan headed to my home system, which would arrive next turn (240). That would toast the home system, and the only 2 planets I had which could build cruiser sized ships. The Antarans would reach that outer system on 240, but they were no threat at all. Even in the best scenario, where I captured death ray or x armor from the Antarans (by capturing the frigate and scrapping it), I would never had been able to build enough ships fast enough to defend against the Elerians, who would just roll up my empire 1 system every couple of turns from that point on.
Lesson learned. Don't play uncreative without the tolerant trait and some other powerful boosts, like telepathy.
Edit, spying results:
134 Hum cyber security link
137 Hum battle pods
140 Hum fusion rifle
146 Hum fusion beam
151 Eler fusion drive
155 Hum emissions guidance system
156 Eler titans (lost contact with Humans)
168 Eler recyclotron
171 Eler planetary supercomputer (still had no research labs)
173 Eler battle scanner
174 Eler heightened intelligence
178 Eler powered armor
180 Eler android scientists
220 Eler gauss cannon
22.5 Mek planetary stock exchange
22.6 Eler battlestation
The spying was pretty good, though while I kept it up continuously, there were several times where I went for a long time without stealing any techs.
2nd edit: Darloks were also in the game, and a close neighbor. They did very good and were one of the top two in pop most of the game and also had a large fleet of battleships. They are uncreative, and also -1 res (and one of the repulsive AI in this game), but they also get tolerant. The game also gave them subterranean as one of their AI impossible playing level boosts and probably a better line up of techs and systems to colonize, judging from their tech and planet states.
