What races do you find good for climbing difficulty levels, and why?

[Guardian54]

Suppose I set everything to normal except 400-star, 6x6 (so a reasonably intimate galaxy) and pirates don't respawn. (PreWarp used)

What races do you recommend when increasing difficulty?

I've cakewalked Easy with Quameno, snowballed Medium with Quameno, but...
After my last match where I found a silent chamber of Securans and then assimilated them, I'm strongly tempted to try Securan for the zerg rush reproduction, as I find my economy cannot keep up in Hard with Quameno at the early game stage and any pirates cancelling protection before I get Gerax Hyperdrives is a death sentence if I forgot to keep enough cash in reserve to immediately re-negotiate... especially as even dropping my tax to 0 still doesn't give me even 9% out of 14% base reproduction... should I just restart until I get a better planetary development/quality homeworld, or set the start system to Excellent instead? Or use Democracy instead of Technocracy?

Restarting to get a better starting system (though NO resources on homeworld, ugh) seems to be working out so far. What's with moon starts being so much better than planet starts?

And is it just me or are other Empires absolutely no threat in Easy and Medium, and the game's just incessant Pirate Wars?

Or should I start trying other races (butbutbut muh tech bonuses... and the ridiculously OP NovaCore Reactor (in early game)...)?

Please advise if possible, thanks.

[Guardian54]

Well I finally (after about 10 reloads of autosaves--curse this thing not letting you autosave every 5 minutes!) made it to Gerax + Velocity Shards + not being bankrupt + 5 frigates with 100 firepower and 500 shields each. Now it'll just be one long, long snowball... particularly as I just unlocked dreadnought (ahem supply ship) tech, built a Bukkake Shipyard (you hose down the enemy with numbers, economic and military alike) and am about to get Plasma Thunderbolt.

I strongly suspect Quameno is actually one of the easiest to climb difficulties with due to Mk 1 NovaCore being stupidly OP for the tech level.

[Retreat1970]

The only downside to Quameno is pop growth, but just push for med center wonder to negate that. Very easy race to play.

High pop growth rate races (atuuk, securan, gizurean, etc...) are easier as well. Population = money. Just buy techs 3x speed.

I've played all races multiple times, and none are too hard. It's a personal choice though. I find Dhayut is harder for me, but that's just me (low pop growth, no tech bonus, hates everyone). The only plus is their warp drive racial. I like to role play as well, and play with house rules (no exploits), and that can make things very difficult.