First I'd like to thank Stardock for bringing back my favorite custom race icon. Life would not have been the same without it. 
((((((Now I have observations and suggestions. Observations in a bit of a crappy AAR format and numbered suggestions.
I picked a custom race with the yor tech tree and synthetic trait (because I think they need each other). On maps immense and bigger the ram was over 5GB on turn one so I am playing on a smaller one and its still really big thankfully. About 30 turns in I met the snathi and thought researching PI would be a wise choice, but first I researched enhanced training giving me a soldiering bonus. I also got some basic weapons tech from them.
About 7 turns later at turn 37, I sent my survey ship to the east and saw the unmistakable edges of light blue influence. I found the altarians! So I started building a freighter while I was working towards PI. As for map generation though, they were really close to me. So I was one or two techs away from making it to the next age and that delayed my research flow for PI as I could not research it yet. That's why I find ages a bit annoying, though not as much as before now that they are a bit more balanced. I instead looked at what the altarians had to trade, to my horror they were far more advanced than me with more weapons tech, colony techs, colonies, and PI. I ended up trading for it in a lucrative deal I don't think a human would have said yes to. I got PI, orbital manufacturing, and a trade resource for another trade resource 400 credits and wealthy population. Considering they were furious at me for being a opposing ideology and being "on a war frenzy" I don't think it was wise for them to trade that to me even with my +2 diplomacy points for my race.
So at turn 54 I had the trade route done with them, the snathi were conquered but the soldiering bonus did not show up in the invasion, maybe its disabled? Else it is a bug. Combat was also interesting, though I will say I am going to mod combat alot but overall I like the way it works apart from the ship range not being represented properly. There is alot of strategy involved and I like that. 
At that time I had already had ships in altarian space ( because they were to slow to get out when it became there territory. And they told me they saw the ships massing at there boarders. I really did want to be friends, but it just didn't work out that. In the AIs defense, it had medium hulls and was building military ships to the three colonies nearest to me that I had just barely missed colonizing turns before. By the time they got there to defend the planets , they were one turn to late, my transports had invaded two of their colonies.
I also had other issues. I sent a fleet to attack remaining snathi stations. Though I could still trade with them when they should have been dead and had nothing. I took everything they had for a peace treaty. I also had the iconians pop up in my territory when I was about to invade the altarians. There goes my first impression. 
though I had a warm relationship with them despite my flaws. And lastly I found another minor race in between me and the altarians, guess what I'm going to do to them... 
And that's the end of my game so far, now for the feedback 
:
1. There isn't a tool tip for frozen worlds saying what tech you need to colonize it.
2. There is a leaders name that is ISIS And wares a gas mask. Lmao
3. I was able to buy two improvements in one turn by clicking on the planet inbetween turns.
4. I say a system with 7 planets on a map, second time something like this happened and its wired and awesome at the same time. Though I don't have a save file for you guys as it was on a immense sized map I quit yesterday.
5. The large empire penalty is nuts. How can I ever get 100 planets if proper are.getting sad and.going bat shit nuts just because I got a new colony?!?!? All I would be doing is building approval buildings and never winning the game through conquest, especially on large maps where there are large empires. It just doesn't make snece for this game as it adds micro management and makes something hard, harder and unfun to ever attempt.
6. Custom ships show up in the colors of the race, but cord models like the constructor of the style you picked is in that races color on shipyard lists. It would be nice if it was displayed in my factions colors to be more immersive, I picked the drengin style for one race but digest using their colors compared to my obsidan hulls.
Also, it would be preferable to actually chose what colors I want instead of picking a list of presets and tinkering with material textures so it looks right. I wanted a make a black and white hull with blue and gray trim. Just saying, change that.
7. When switching the "show no grid outside of influence" setting, only the drengin obey it. But they do the opposite. When set, every race shows no effect but the drengin lose there grid inside of there borders. Interesting.
DARCA
