Toggle Background Color
Opening map. Nice and centralized: normally I like a corner start, but the sooner we meet people the sooner we can start stealing from them.
Not 1, or 2, but 3 Artifacts planets in my neighborhood! (The 3rd one was pretty close to human space in the west, but I somehow got it first.) This was actually the first one, which was bizarre; getting Range 6 before 4 or 5 was researched!
Due to the bug the Darloks are Xenophobic as always. Kinda futile to try stealing from them, but I set up the espionage spending anyway. They declared like 3 turns after 1st contact, but can't reach me.
2nd Artifacts world. Derpasaurus Rex makes our missile bases pretty deadly for the very early game.
1st contact with the Silicoids, finger pointing at Cryslon. I set up espionage on them too.
Apparently there were supposed to be "checks and balances" in the code based on imperial production to weight random events (as well as prevent bad ones from happening to empires with fewer than 4 planets), but of course it doesn't work, and the #1 race gets some freebies. I didn't note what they got, though.
Much like in Thot's update, I traded Bio Toxin Antidote for Fusion Beam. This is actually a trade in your favor: Planetology TL 17 versus 20 for the latter. It's a very good deal if you're not planning on using bioweapons yourself. Heavy Fusion Beams deal up to 15 damage against planets, making them future-proof for a long time.
I pick up the Thotimx Special, of course. 
The first steal! When in doubt, go Computers. It'll make future spy efforts more likely, and if you're like me and hate researching "levelled" techs that are just going to be obsoleted later, this makes you feel not so bad.
And I got caught. That bodes well! Doesn't stop me, of course, even though the Silicoids could crush me militarily right now.
2nd hit, didn't get caught that time.
Now this is a surprise! Getting steals on the Darloks is pretty rare. Whatever TL I have listed for them on the table, mentally add +20 to it; those were lucky hits!
The first expansion warning. This eventually led to relations with the Humans souring enough an alliance with the Darloks would bring them in (I'm pretty sure the alliance was formed and they declared on the same turn, which is cheap as heck; but humans do it too, so....)
Between techin' and stealin', #1 is a good place to be.
I marked this one as "possible cheating," since most revolts are caused by Sabotage... however, the Darloks were the only race that was mad at me, and they also sabotaged some factories on the same turn. I suppose it was just bad luck and I got the random event revolt, since there wasn't another one.
More AI brilliance, as the Darloks move almost their entire fleet to garrison their furthest east colony and leave me to plunder their core.
The Humans offer me a NAP on the same turn I get my 2nd steal on them. I say yes, they declare war like 3 turns later. 
My big jump in Computers occurs here, when I loot Hyperspace Communications from the Darloks. That's another great aspect of spying: you can augment your research to get military tech, which you can parlay into even more tech by successfully invading, which you can use to get better spying odds to....
Thanks to that huge Computers boost, the frame-jobs start popping up.
Finally make contact with the Mrrshan after taking some Silicoid planets, and... yeah....
Right before I make contact with the Bulrathi. I'm basically at a Final War and winning, despite being completely surrounded, because I got such a huge tech advantage, and Sakkra can push forward militarily very quickly, since their planets fill up almost instantly, good Planetology means those citizens are productive, and a productive reserve lets you focus BC on the sliders to make those planets able to defend themselves so most of your fleet can move on. What I usually do is dump enough Reserve in to give the planet about 5 turns at its current max BC (so if it says it has 300 production, I put 1500 in), put IND at about 50%, and then ECO to rush through Soil enrichment, Terraforming, etc., then doing the same until its planetary shields and 1st base are done.
I make peace with the non-Silicoids and bribe their votes and win easily (especially since most of them are still at war with the Sillies). Fun game!