Victory!

Just completed my first Space Empires V game!

Mod: Captain Kwok's Balance Mod
Galaxy: Default mid-life galaxy, approx. 40 systems total
Empires: 11 empires, I think
Length: 101 turns
Victory conditions: Conquer the galaxy!

The game was entertaining, but unfortunately the last 40 turns were anti-climactic. Although I didn't know it at the time, I destroyed the last non-neutral empire around turn 60. The remaining five empires (some of which I hadn't found yet) were "neutral", meaning they would never leave their home systems. They weren't much of a challenge :/

Towards the end, I was only slowed down by the length of time it took to resupply my assault fleets. Otherwise the game would have ended much, much sooner.

I like the balance mod very much in general. In general, though, I found some of the technology levels to be prohibitively expensive. For example, I would have liked to have tried out the Warp Point creation gadgets, but I never got anywhere close to achieving the required technology level. Almost all of my planets were 100% research centers, and I was generating 170,000 research points per turn near the end, but that Stellar Manipulation tech is *expensive*!

I never developed ships past the Light Cruiser level; they were more than sufficient against the AI.