[AgentZero]

Personally I just take a medium tech start with either low or medium tech costs. This is plenty to start the game with APBs, and I've found that Balance Mod AIs will pretty much always grab APBs if they can get them too. There does seem to be a problem even with APBs and ringworlds though. Basically, a ship won't fire on a planet unless it can hit the centre of the planet. With ringed planets, the ring prevents the ships from getting close enough to fire, thus resulting in invincible planets, until you get some nice long ranged weapons.