I played the Escape mission from the Dread Lords Campaign for the first time last night, on Normal difficulty. Over the course of the mission, the Dread Lords did not build anything. I never saw a Dread Lords ship, and when I invaded (using Traditional Warfare) I found their planet had no improvements, not even a colony. Every tile had some imporvement waiting to be built, but the planet had 0 production (and 0 research, and 0 food).
Is this the way the mission is supposed to be? Did I manage to complete the mission before the Dread Lords woke up? Or is it a bug that their planet had no colony, and didn't produce anyting?