[geoschmo]

Yes, I played about 50 turns last night and I've reached the same conclusion. With Intel this is just too hard. Probably impossible. You might be able to get a bunch of planets around the core, mine the heck out of them and launch satellites and then try and hang on while you build up your intel. But even without building any ships that the AI can mutiny away from you, losing a planet every few turns to food contamination and not having any way to replace their population will cause an inevitable strain on your ability to defend yourself.

The problem with your fix is the AI keeps building intel facilities and wasting resources. I definetly need to revise this secnario and and make it a no intel game. I think I will make two more versions, with one where you maintain your technological advantage over the other races.