Someone compiled a list of all the useful Posts from this board. Try here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~petemmer/
For ST races, look at Atrocities sig. He's got links to all his races (i'm having a great time with them now). For SW races:
http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/
But the SW aren't gold compatible, but its real easy to get them working. Search for capnq, in his sig theres a link for updating non-Gold AI's to gold.
I learned by doing a quick start. Then turning on complete ai, then just clicking on next turn and seeing what the AI does. You get a feel for what you should be doing, but its really just the beginning. That ~petemmer is a really great resource, i would read the whole thing.
Thanks to all the people who made the sites/races that i mentioned above.