Also, depending on what research rate that you play at (i.e. slow, normal, fast, etc.), the Altarians can be one of the most powerful researching civ's in TA. It all depends on the distribution of the bonuses that you get at the start of the game.
BTW - zarith makes a very good point - some of the civ's on TA have unique techs that they can research very fast (i.e. Temples for the Altarians and Drath) - and some of the civ's unique techs take forever (i.e. Spore Weapons for the Korath).
Sometimes, however, you'll see an AI that has a tech, unique or not, that usually takes a very long time to research, but they have it in the first few months of the first year. If that's the case, then one has to assume that some Creativity Bonus was appplied either from a previously researched tech -such as the Arcean's War Rooms - or the AI got a Creativity Bonus at the start of the game. The options for how the AI got a certain tech or certain amount of techs can vary quite a bit. There's also a possibility that the AI went crazy on the Research slider and maxed it out or got very close to 100%. This can give anyone, human or AI, an incredible boost in the Research department.
Hope this helps to answer your questions. Best regards!
~ Cypher ~
