Dominant AI empires

[Azatol]

Although its very very late in turns compared to any normal game, in my current game at turn 2458.1, playing with no-warp points and not making a mad dash to stellar manipulation like usual, I've seen the rise of a super empire in the Terrans.

They are now on my borders although they haven't attacked yet. In a game that contains mostly empires with 3-4 systems and neutrals with 1, the Terrans have 13 systems and 128 ships. I've mostly expanded when enemies opened warp points to my systems (two neutrals did this, which was interesting if bizarre). They have around 128k research per turn and have finally surpassed me as leader in number of techs.

Now that I've contacted them I'm going all out building base ships to guard the warp point into my space, but I've seen a fleet of 18 ships, at least one being a dreadnought, possibly all. It should be interesting and a rare treat to watch such a powerful AI play out the game. They've been gobbling the other enemies up like candy.

So what examples have you see of dominant AI empires? Did the AI work out with that many ships or did they seem to struggle when they finally came up against a human?

Scores --

Terrans 1st 1.6 million points
Piundon 2nd 567 thousand points
Me 3rd 318 thousand points

[Renegade 13]

I was playing a huge galaxy, 9 TDM AI's, High bonus, High difficulty, all AI's against me. Around turn 120 I was in third last (I think), with the United Flora having...erp...1700 ships.

Needless to say, I lost that game. To my embarassment.