Why doesnt Space Empires V have pre-made AI opponents?

Those 'randomly' generated opponents are pre-made Empires. You can lower the number of AI opponents for the Low setting in the settings.txt file, located in the SE5\Data folder. Locate these lines:

Minimum Computer Player Low Setting := 1
Maximum Computer Player Low Setting := 3

This is the default. You could put the Maximum Computer Player Low Setting to 2, thus making sure you'd never get more than 2 opponents on Low.

The main reason is probably starting tech levels; trying to keep saved empire files coordinated with each setting of starting tech points and changes to tech costs for balance would be a nightmare.

You could let the game generate a bunch of AI empires, set them to human control, then save the empire data to .emp files.

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You can create AI empires during game setup without having any random empires. Just create the empires as normal but set them to computer control instead of human.

If you really want to have specific numbers of AI opponents you can Randomly generate races and set them under AI control. granted facing them won't be a complete surprise since you'll know at least part of what they are.

Neutrals are empires which don't expand outside their home system...think of them as minor races. Good for exploiting, terrible as pets because they can't be housebroken.

Generally they don't make much of an impact on the game so I usually turn them off.

Quickstart doesn't use premade empire files, so much as just read the AI files.

The procedure for creating empire files for the stock races was posted above.

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