I believe..

[SITS]

DP

[Missourian]

I play with blind research which increases the strength of the alien factions as they have directed research. I belive the game was meant to be played with blind research in single player games. As i never lose to the AI when i use directed research and why else give the aliens the ability for direct research.

If you have never played this way in single player i urge you to try it and if you like it select all four tech catagories to research from. Plus you have to trade techs more, for some reason some factions wont research certain techs. Oh and blind research sucks in multiplayer games takes less skill and more luck to win.

[Mr. President]

It's true that the Free Drones will always be behind on tech for much of the 2100s. But that's not necessarily fatal, even in a war. If they take the initiative and attack more than they defend, they can easily swamp their enemies, even with inferior weapons. Remember that the attacker's weapon rating is compared to the defender's armor rating. Even if Domai's enemies have Resonance Lasers and his men only have normal Lasers, it doesn't matter as long as they don't have a chance to use them.

The Democracy/Free Market/Knowledge combination is especially powerful when used by the Drones. This gets their Research back to neutral, their Efficiency to +3, their Economy to +2, while their Industry remains +2. With careful preparations (Hologram Theatres, Virtual World, Tree Farms), they can out-research most factions, build large armies fast, and still run up a nice budget surplus.

The first thirty years or so are even more difficult for the Drones than for other factions. But if they get past this, few will be able to compete with them.

[Clear Skies]

Personally, I never find the Drones that difficult an opponent, even when played by a fairly competent human. I nearly always play as Consciousness, and as long as you can get the techs faster than the Drones (which one nearly always can), you can build so many more SPs that poor Domai tends to simply get submerged under all the special effects that all your SPs give you.