I am playing a large galaxy and have wiped out everyone except the Altarians and some pirates. I am at war, but decided since I have the advantage to try for a technology victory. The Altarians keep trying to surrender and when I accept I am awarded an influence victory in 10 moves, so I keep rejecting their surrender. I even gave them three decent planets, but now they keep revolting and coming back to my side. We each have about the same number of planets but I am way ahead in Tech and have lots of cash. The pirates have some nice ships that took out my Lucky Rangers like they were toys. I am ready to go after the pirates by building some high tech ships.
With only a large galaxy and all my planets full out doing research, it still take about 20 weeks to research an new tech.
Anyone else done a tech victory?