I think I might have come up with a lead here....
Ive just tried restarting my game with various paramaters...
The only thing that creates errors, is if I say yes to "Generate Random Computer Contolled Empires".
If I switch this off (even leaving Neutrals ON) the game starts ok.
This leads me to think (in my newbie 3 days with se4) that its the default ai thats stuffed
Has anyone got the most recent unmodded Gold Version (TDM?) set of default ai ?
Ive tried overwriting my default ai folders with the TDM pack I have, but that didnt work.