Greetings,

The last game which was whatever update prior to the optional 1.1 I was playing Gifted ai. In that game the ai were doing very well and expanding as they should. Here are some observations from my current game in 1.1. My settings have not changed, Insane, loose clusters rare/rare occasional everything else, rare pirates (note they are rare not eliminated). I downloaded many new custom factions and have 15 total with myself which makes 16. Prior to starting this game I downloaded the Opt in and then verfiied the files to make sure none were corrupted or missing. 

• The ai in 1.1 are not expanding. I will often see at least 1 ai not doing so, such as the Thalan but in this new game almost 2/3rd of them have not bothered to colonize worlds in their area of influence. I had planets on rare/rare but the 'number' of planets was abundant. There were MANY habitable planets around all the ai yet they did not expand and many built constructors or nothing. Several shipyards had NOTHING building in them. 
• Pirates ~ I put this on RARE and double checked to make sure I did. I found 5 Pirate ship yards all doing nothing and building nothing. There were ZERO pirate ships as of turn 200 but many pirate bases which I promptly hunted down and destroyed. 
• The ai has very few military ships, most are small or tiny. Did we get a major xml error on ai ships?
• The factions that are doing well are the Borg, The Altarian ( I sold them 9 military techs to use against an ai they are at war with.) and my custom ai H.U.G.Z (who are fighting the Altarians). 
• In the prior update I would see at least 2 factions in the 700-800 range in power with several in the 600+ range by turn 180. Currently more than 9 are between 45 and 180 in power. Again lack of expansion and I think lack of ships. 

Ill start a new game tomorrow night and see if the same issues repeat. Anyone have any ideas on why this is happening? I know stardock is afk this week. I can upload a save game later tonight.

Cheers!