Problem with using TDM Modpack

[Dragonlord]

OK, after several hours of experimentation, here are my results. Unfortunately I am still having problems.

Uninstalled SE4. Reinstalled, then patched to 1.35. Still using TDM Mod 1.70. I took about 5 different shipsets I found on these forums (in addition to the ones in the modpack) and added them to the /pictures/races directory of the modpack. I then made .emp files for races using these shipsets (all at 5000 racial points) and put them in the Mod's Empires dir.

So far so good. I create a game of my own race (the dragons, basically slightly modded Terrans) vs. 15 AI players. I used only one of the standard AI races, plus all the new ones from the Modpack and the others I added.
The game starts ("compiles") OK, no errors this time about unknown commands in .txt files. I happily start playing.

BUT: I noticed that the AI only seems to be commanding 4 of the 15 AI races ! When it is the turn of those races the AI takes about a second to compute the turn for that race, all others flash by in like 1/10th of a second. I also had to explore over a dozen systems before finding another player.
Furthermore, diplomacy still does not work. Once I found my first enemy player I offered him a NA pact, next turn I did not even get a reply back ! That's not how it should be, right?

Possible causes: modpack can't deal with races not included in the modpack? odd, but it also is not handling its own races...

I dont know if this is relevant but I'll mention it anyway: when setting up the game, I manually add the races I want to play against (add existing) but don't edit them one by one to turn them over to the Computer. I start the game and before I do anything else, I hit F2, Players, and use that dialog box to turn all other races over to the AI.
I had no random empires (neutral or otherwise) added to this game.

Please help !!

Thanks in advance,

Dragonlord