[PvK]

AI races, even the included ones, would be affected by a mod which only changes the empire creation costs.

All empires designed with the old point system would be likely to come out slightly differently with a new point system. Except for 5000-point empires, though, they might tend to come out better balanced than before, because the AI selects abilities until it runs out of points (or out of things on its shopping list).

AI empires which are set to capitalize on underpriced advantages in the unmodded game won't get to have as many of them, while AI empires designed to use overpriced advantages will get more of them, until they run out of things they are programmed to try to get, at which point they'll just lose their extra points.

Changing component sizes would affect AI designs. Not necessarily for the worse, though.

I think the main point of a balance mod is to help PBW games between humans, however - the AI impact isn't particularly important, it seems to me.

PvK