Over in B5 land they're struggling with "convincing" the AI to take enough population to it's newly built colonies. Their idea was to increase the carrying capacity (and expense) of the colony components. However, it seems like the components are "just about right" as they stand for the average human player. My suggestion was to make an "is a computer player" racial trait that includes larger colony components. Then only the computer player could use this crutch/coddling to keep up with human intelligence. I'd suggest this here again... make an "is a computer player" racial trait and load it up with the necessary coddling components, ships, etc.
perhaps a super efficient scout hull that could get them out to 3-4 systems early on (sort of a limited type of Ancient) but just for AI? You can force an AI to build a few in early game, right? If that doesn't work, I guess you could just give them full-blown "Ancient" trait in the "is a computer player" racial trait.
And if someone is willing to play with the AI trait on... well that's just sad
I imagine that in most PBW games it would just be "disallowed" for human players.
I've no idea if that's helpful, but I hope so.