I used to fear these guys greatly in GC2. So far in GC3, and this is only my limited experience of playing this since the Elite Founder offering and almost 1900+ hours of game time, they have been pretty laughable for me. I've had them in maybe 7-9 of my games so far 4-5x I never even encountered them, some other race wiped them out. The other times they were easily defeated. Today they popped up again. This was the first time their planet appeared within my territory. Two tiles away from one of my planets. This game has given me a poor start. Excessive map, 25 major and random minors, tight clusters. The cluster I found myself in had only a total of 6 planets, 2 of which were occupied by minors, and the Dread Lord's home world appeared right next (2 tiles away) to one of my planets... this was around turn 192. Wiped them out and had their planet 3 turns later with a minor fleet of 8 medium sized ships. They have totally been a non-issue for me each and every time they have appeared in my games. I keep hoping that one of these times they're going to be able to grow and thrive and actually become a challenge to me. Same experience with the Peace Keepers. I've just had very weird luck... I keep holding out hope that one of these games, in the mid-late part of the game that I will encounter a race with similar to greater power than I have and give me a run for my money. Still hasn't happened yet. No, I don't consider myself some outrageous player either. Maybe it's because I play with Gifted AI? Next game I'll try bumping it up some more.

Wow that was easy, they popped up right next to one of my planets, 1 turn moved a fleet to the planet and boom they were dead.  Something too that is different with them than in Galactic Civilizations II, there they were given a fully upgraded manufacturing planet, with full population.  This made it more difficult to conquer it right away.  I would do the following.

• Match GalCiv II, give them a fully upgraded manufacturing planet.
• Match GalCiv II, bring pop to full.
• Give all max soldering techs (making them hard to conquer).
• Give all techs that any faction has researched in the game to this point. (this means that they would be as tech advanced as the most advanced faction and potentially a little bit more depending on if any other factionss have other techs the highest rated faction has.)
• Give them a fleet of the best ships they can create with the largest fleet they can create.
• Provide them shipyard.
• Give them a protection fleet in orbit similar to the other fleet.  (so one can't just send 1 transport to the planet with no armor/weapons to defeat them.)

I would also give them additional bonus's depending on game difficulty.  You should also be able to see their area of influence (maybe a black border, bringing darkness to the galaxy.)