Ancient Shadows vs Vengeance of the Machine

[Tridus]

Why are you turning off the entire expansion rather than just the parts of it you don't like? (e.g. Champions or Spirecraft)

How can you do that ? Get rid of champions ?

Not pick Champion or Normal+Champion in the role dropdowns..?

This. Champions only appear in the game at all if you turn them on by picking a role with champion in it. If you don't do that, you don't get champions and neither does the AI.

[Cyborg]

I'm pretty sure that a champion counts as one fifth or so the weight of another homeworld.

I'm sure it's more than that. I'm still scarred from losing a showdown event, even after spawning 200 golems.

[Tridus]

The golems probably made it worse. Showdown scales like crazy with super weapons, to the point that they're a detriment.  It's really bad with FS, the exogalactic transceiver is easier to pull off.

[Bognor]

I'm pretty sure that a champion counts as one fifth or so the weight of another homeworld.

I'm sure it's more than that. I'm still scarred from losing a showdown event, even after spawning 200 golems.

The AIs' response to champions got totally reworked; see patch notes.  Patch 6.019 tweaked those numbers a bit.