Well I can't believe I'm saying this, but I already went and purchased the Nemesis DLC. Fortunately, I found it for a decent price (
$11.99 on WinGameStore), so I will only beat myself with a stick 50 times instead of 100.
I realized I've been enjoying 3.0 enough -- despite its myriad flaws (and my inevitable bitching) -- that I probably won't be going back to 2.1 (or any other earlier version of the game). And since I like the spy/intel system so much, and the idea of becoming Galactic
Tyrant Custodian is undeniably appealing, I figured I might as well grab the DLC sooner rather than later -- especially if I could avoid paying an arm and a leg for it!
I now have Nemesis installed, and it's already had an impact on my current game: I've acquired an asset in one empire (my rival), plus damaged relations between that empire and a star nation who they've been becoming friendlier with as of late. I don't want my rival to have any more friends than can be reasonably helped, so I felt that some skullduggery was called for.
Also: I love, love the new soundtrack pieces. Andreas Waldetoft has definitely still got the touch.
Yeah, the influence hit for treaties ranks up there in the really bad idea dept. I just got hit with the mid-game crisis. It's nanobots that constantly pop out of the two wormholes that were formerly within my borders. Each fleet is about 32k strong. Best I can build is about 13k so punching through to invade their little corner of space is not going to happen for a long time. The worst thing is, they keep spawning new fleets that knock out 4-5 of my systems each time and, thanks to the idiotic influence costs, I can't afford to rebuild outposts to get them back. Losing all these systems means my energy and minerals are seriously in the red so I can't cancel my trade agreements to get more influence/turn because doing so will tank the economy even more.
Such fun...
While I definitely agree you're in a bad spot, I don't think it's the mid-game crisis that you're dealing with. The Great Khan uniting the marauder clans, and subsequently trying to conquer the galaxy, is the mid-game crisis.
It sounds as if perhaps you -- or more likely, someone else -- has opened up the L-Gates, and released the Gray Tempest onto the galaxy as a result (which is 1 of the 4 outcomes that can happen when the L-Gates are opened).
If that's the case, then you have the fight of your life on your hands right now. The Gray Tempest is even more dangerous than the Great Khan, as the latter only want to conquer the galaxy, whereas the former want to straight-up destroy it.