18 moves colony ship on turn 7?

No.  Not on genius.  I've not seen that before.  I'll look into it.

Most likely you accidental change difficulty setting to a single opponent in the last screen of new game setup. Surprisingly easy to do when you scroll through the list and your cursor is in the wrong place. It was mentioned multiple times here and there, not a big deal but somthink to keep in mind.

Thanks for the replies, I checked my last used game settings: 11 random opponents on incredible (not genius). 18 moves seem still too much for me. I uploaded the savegame here in case it helps (custom race used).

This reminded of some times when the Tywom are in the game I'm playing, and they have a lot more moves than I do.  They didn't have as much as you are seeing, but it was more than I expected.  I decided to see if I could find a reason.  This is what I found.

Base moves of all ships = 1
Hyperdrive = +1 (the game designs all ships with at least one hyperdrive)
Tywom = +2 (They have the Fast +2 trait that gives 2 extra moves)

Their base is 4 moves.

All difficulty levels above Normal = +1

Their base is now 5 moves for difficulty levels above Normal

All difficulty levels above Normal also have extra bonuses that are a percent increase.
Gifted = +33%
Genius = +200%
Incredible = +200%

Their final base moves are:
Gifted = 5 + 33% = 5 + 1.65 = 6.65 (I think this rounds up to 7)
Genius = 5 + 200% = 5 + 10 = 15 (less than what you're seeing, but I think I can explain it in next section)
Incredible = Genius

The Tywom have a colonizable planet in their starting system.  The AI usually rushes a colony ship and settles a planet like that in the first few turns.  They then have to choose a government.  If they choose Imperial, they get an extra move.

If this is the case, then their final moves will be 8 for Gifted and 18 for the other two.

If this is the case, it will explain why I'm see Tywom ships with 8 moves and you're seeing one with 18 moves.

I'm beginning to hate them more than I did before I did this investigation.

Nice work Old-Spider!

If you ask me, the AIs should not get both, a base movement speed bonus and % boni.

Generally, applying the % boni to things like movement which just linearly grows (unlike sensor power) is also questionable. They will probably get 100+ moves in lategame.

Maybe it would be better to just increase base movement speed per difficulty and do not apply the % bonus here.

I think I will lower the difficulty settings for now to avoid those kind of things.

So so so so sad to see they have still not fixed incredible difficulty. (Its so close to godlike it makes no difference).

I had one of these on GIFTED.

It was Thalan and turn 31.