Slitherine

It seems to me that the AI players have a considerable advantage. I am being beaten with only 2 small cities with the AI players cover the landscape. This hasn't happened in every game, but often enough.
Ok, so I dial down the difficulty and get 5 cities going, but the other Factions cover everything, so without going to war I am not going to expand.

I have lost to Military defeat without being aware that I was at war. I wasn't attacked. I just lost.
Those files were sent in email.

Auto explore would be good but I would want the explorer to avoid alien encounters, if possible, so as not to loose as many explorers early on.

A military victory is achieved by size of population. In theory you can achieve it without one shot if your population grows a lot faster than everyone else.