Fundamentally, the big problem you're always going to have is a limited sample size. You, myself, and a few other people here are experimenting with the mod.
Getting a bigger sample size will always be a problem. The forums aren't as frequented as they used to, and the amount of active posters will always be lower than the lurkers. Heck, until a little over a year ago, I was a lurker myself.
The reason why I do look for some consistency is to see if we have multiple games with similar results; it gives me a higher confidence level (statistically speaking) to suggest that it is not just bad luck and something that needs to be changed on your part.
At the moment, there is no consistency with the Terrans. Right after I made the last post, they started to loose again. I'm going to use the AIValues from my last release, just to make certain I didn't brake anything.
Altarians - I really am not sure why they are going to war so often. It could be a sample size issue, but they do seem to have this tendency to go to war. Their empire is usually not particularly weak so they aren't the "weak race getting picked off" so to speak.
Could be. I'm still not sure what to make of it. It sometimes seems like the Good alignment is overriding the Aggression value. However, it isn't always the case, because the Altarians will also declare war on other Good or Neutral races, not just the Evil ones.
To be honest, at this point, making Drath and Altarian distinct should be a low priority - getting the other things right should be higher.
If I change their tech trees later on, I will have to adjust their AI again. This would increase my work even more. Still, the point is moot anyway, because I have no idea what to do with them. The
original concept doesn't help either.
Iconians - I think it may just be a fundamental AI limitation - they aren't building their powerful PP abilities. Other than setting a higher AI value, I'm not sure what else to do. You could try moving these PP improvements further down the tech tree, but that has other balance implications.
I'm not sure, where else I could move them. The Iconians already start out with three of their 1pps. The next three are unlocked just by going up the manufacturing tree. Only the Merchant Trade Complex is problematic, because the Iconians don't often research up the diplomacy tree.
Drengin - will need to see your changes in action more to comment, assuming you're referring to a newer version.
I do. Sorry, if I wasn't clear enough. I already made several new changes, mostly to the tech categories, but don't expect a release this month.
I do agree though with lowering their aggressiveness - they need to go to war only when prepared. Otherwise, they'll be fine as AI 7.
It's too early to judge, but the Drengin won several of my last test games. It remains to be seen, if they are still as good against a human player.
Thalan - should be ok then in terms of points. In terms of choosing the right technologies, I think you'll need to go through the tech tree again at some point and make changes.
As strange as it sounds, I actually like their tech tree, because it is completely different than those of the other races. The Thalan's problem, however, isn't the way the tech tree is build, but that their AI is unwilling to research certain types of techs. I have a hard time getting them to research Technology Adaptation I. Even if they do, they most likely remain at the first level. Same with Industrial Adaptation. I can see neither rhyme nor reason with them. Other races with AIP 8 love to research manufacturing techs, yet the Thalan don't. At least not for the most part. I'm considering to change them to AIP 11. Maybe that will help.
Edit: ... or I cave in and make some changes after all. That works too.
I moved Remedial Engineering between Xeno Engineering and Interstellar Construction, and increased the Research-bonus to +10%. The Thalan also no longer start out with Interstellar Construction. Instead, they get Xeno Engineering. They just had too many techs to choose from at the start of the game, making it problematic for the AI. This change should help with that. The AI still has a problem with the economy, however. Once it has Industrial Adaptation, it will build begin to build Manufacturing Matrices L1, thereby wrecking its still weak economy. By the time it has recovered from that, the other races will have a huge headstart.
I can think of four ways to solve this: make the AI research the economy techs first (hard to do), reduce the maintenance cost (easy to do, but no guarantees it will help; it could also be OP), limit the amount of Manufacturing Matrices L1 you can build (easy to do, but can lead to other problems, especially if the AI takes a long time to research the more advanced techs), or do as the original design said, and combine the Manufacturing and Technology Matrix into one building.
The last one takes probably the most effort (except maybe the first idea), and while it isn't guaranteed, that it will help the AI's economy, it does remove some problems. Mostly, that the AI isn't researching either Technology Adaptation or the more advanced versions of it. However, there are still some problems with it. How do I adjust the techs? The text for both tech lines needs to be combined, but I don't see how I could do this so it still makes sense. Then there is the question of how to balance the cost of the techs and the maintenance of the improvement. If either one is too high, it will not solve the original problem with the AIs economy. However, if either one is too low, the Thalan will be OP compared to the other races. The question of balance is the main reason I haven't tried this approach before.
2nd edit: Forget the last idea. I just tried out, if it could work, but it's a no-go. The AI doesn't take full advantage of it, and still won't research the more advanced versions. I'm starting to think that the reason for this is that the output of the improvements don't change. They already start out at full power. Maybe the AI sees this and thinks, that there is no point in continuing the research, overlooking the reduction in maintenance? It could be. One way to solve this would be change the improvements to work all the others, but that would go against the design and lore of the Thalan. Another way would be to just remove the additional techs and make the first one provide the most advanced version of the buildings. However, that could easily be quite OP. I'm really not sure what to do in this case. Before I make any decision, however, I'll try AIP 11. Maybe that one can deal better with the Thalan tech tree.