[PvK]

Those sound good to me.

As for Balance Mod, it makes no changes other than to adjust the point costs for creating your empire, so that many more choices are competetive. You actually have to spend a fair number of points for your advantages - it is no longer an obvious choice to max combat skills, take berzerk, and minimize Physical Strength - all the costs should be more or less right, and taking the best of all the most important things is either not possible, or you'd need to minimize lots of other things. See the description at the mod's home page, which is in my signature below.

PvK