I played a game around 1.9 where I raised tech inflation exponents. Around turn 75 I met the Iconians, who had 44 more techs than I did. It was on gifted with brokering off. I may be THAT BAD or the RNG may have been THAT KIND to them, but I still wonder. Ran a couple of tests that I felt were inconclusive, but I still suspect that the tech inflation values are incorrectly effecting only the player. The commented out sections around the stats also specifically state "you" and not "a player".
" <!--Each time you research a tech in any tree the cost of all techs are raised by this exponent-->
<TechInflationExponent_All>1.00</TechInflationExponent_All>
<!--Each time you research a tech in any tree all techs cost is increesed by this multipyer.-->
<TechInflationMultiplier_All>0.05</TechInflationMultiplier_All>"
I don't know if that is the case. I hope they are applied globally. Just putting this comment in as a caution.
BTW, who else thinks that "increesed" and "multipyer" are just screaming "Brad was Here!?" 
