With Xenophobic I can finish the tech tree by turn 100.  And by turn 150 I have superfleets with a huge carrier, all support modules covered (jamming, kinetic accelerator, kinetic range, extra moves, more tactical speed, kinetic defense support, point defense support, missile defense support), and 3 other huge ships in the fleet with an attack strength of 800 kinetic.   

Yeah I often play with a custom made Xenophobic race, I agree it is over powered. They really should cut the bonus down to +100% to research and social production, instead of the +200% it is currently at.

Although I think playing at "genius" difficulty with research and gameplay set to "slow" is still presenting a challenge for me at the moment. I'm currently in the middle of a game where about 4 races have declared war on me before turn 150, and I'm not sure if I will be able to dig my way out of this one. You are much better at "gaming the system" than I am though.

Ya that is what I mean about you are better at "gaming the system" than me. I don't use the Pragmatic "invincibility for 50 turns" thing, just because I think it is a silly kind of broken thing that is "unrealistic". I might select it sometimes just to get to some of the other Ideology options further down that line, but I don't select it for the "haha i'm immune to your declaration of war" anymore. Sure I do take advantage of some game mechanics against the AI, but I prefer to play somewhat "realistically" just for my own sense of immersion. That is the nice thing about flexible games like this, everybody can play how they prefer to play games.