Good, it's working. I actually like this game and I'm trying to get as many people to figure out the exploits that I've figured out so Stardock will start fixing it. To answer someone who is asking how to do it:
Map settings: Immense or larger, 10 or so AI. Abundant, abundant, abundant.
Custom race: Colonizer and Patriotic (duh).
Put all of your points into useful things like Dense ships or Fast ships or More Military Production or Ship Range, or Fertility. Take points from the useless things like "Resist Planetary Invasion," or "Influence" or "Economy" (who needs that?) or "Faster Ship Repair."
Thalan Tech.
Starting from turn 1, put ALL of your points into military production of colony ships. Rush buy maybe a factory or two on your homeworld.
Get Pragmatic, 3 free constructors and convert into colony ships.
Next 3 ideology points go into Benevolence Free Colony Ship and all the way up to level 3 of that tree. Follow that by getting the Benevolence research tree to level 5.
Every time you colonize a world, Colonizer will give you a free shipyard. Use that shipyard to immediately start producing more colony ships.
USE SHIP DESIGNER TO MODIFY YOUR COLONY SHIPS. USE CHEAPER, LESS ENGINE COLONY SHIPS FOR THE WORLDS NEARBY AND LONG RANGE MORE ENGINED COLONY SHIPS FOR THE ONES FAR AWAY. YOU WILL BE EXPLORING WITH YOUR COLONY SHIPS (hence it's a good idea to get sensor bonus as your civilization bonus).
For tech, hope your survey ship finds some for you. Emphasize two types of techs:
1. Hives (the best early game building ever)
2. Better engines.
If you manage to find techs with your survey ship, trade with the AI for the SMALL hulls tech. With the small hulls tech you can build MUCH cheaper colony ships.
But the key is that every time you colonize a world, you set that world to produce more colony ships. As a result your growth becomes exponential. 7 colonies by turn 10. 14 by turn 18. 28 by turn 26. 56 by turn 34. 100 by turn 40.
Of course to do that you have to get a little lucky like finding free tech with your survey ship. If you don't get lucky you'll probably end up with 70 or so colonies by turn 40.
Also, the AI is dumb, so sell the resources you find on the colonies for useful AI tech like Small-sized Hulls and increased ship range, and production techs.