I've realised as much as I love GalCiv3 I kind of suck at it, in my current game when i meet the Dregin and they declared war on me there power was 110, mine was 33????
Up until then I thought I was doing ok, I was clearly mistaken.
The sad thing I was playing on beginner with just 3 opponents.
Mind you when I met the Altarians they where on 30 power and I was on 48, seems the Dregin where way out in front of both of us, then in another game again the power difference between me and the Dregin in another game was me ~30 them about 100, again at beginner.
When making the AI better please consider those of us who kind of suck, (mind you they weren't being all that aggressive in attacking me so I probably can still win) and on a more serious note it seems the Dregin get powerful more quickly than most the other races under AI control.