I didn't go looking for them. Current turn is 2408.8, I made contact with the first empire (Jraenar) 7.6. The others found me shortly thereafter.
I'm bleeding resources now; the intel is ripping my empire to shreds, even though not one AI has physically attacked. Two colonies rioting and two totally wiped out by food poisoning. I'm down to three salvaged ships, one stuck in mothballs (and bombed there) the other en-route to kill a Druska dreadnaught..and I just made contact with the Cu-Cappa,
on the other side of the empire from all the other contacts.. and thus all the other defenses!
On a slightly more amusing note, one of my colony ships has been running back and forth for 10 turns trying to colonize the system next to where it was built. First it got to within one square.. and a ship bomb blew up the colony component. Then it "lost" all it's fuel on the way back; the delay let another bomb hit the colony module. Now a cargo bomb spaced all the population on the way back AGAIN.
Phoenix-D