Tried the game with no DLC. Ended up creating a species of fuedal fox people with a divine emperor, styled off of ancient China. They had an authoritarian government with a lot of influence, and bonuses to having vassals (particularly tributaries). I called the Hu Dynasty, because Hu is supposedly the name for fox in Chinese. Also called them the Hulijing for spirit fox, not that I trust internet Chinese translations.
I ended up getting a huge territory and mineral income. My authoritarian faction was EXTREMELY happy with me, and between that, my rivals, authoritarianism and some other bonuses I got a huge influence income that I used to colonize and build frontier outposts. This in turn put a metric fuckton of space mining within my grasp.
Sadly I might end up restarting. I made the mistake of trying to build the mines first, then get my military up to snuff and got invaded. They took my homeworld, I took it back, now we're both throwing ships into a meatgrinder. I'm always just a *little* behind them in fleet power. I know my potential in terms of mineral income and fleet size is so much greater if I could just get a break. I might be able to get out of this with minor concessions or a white peace; my concern is it I give any ground whatsoever it will start the death spiral of me being invaded. Or getting outpaced by other factions. If I could just win one war and get a tributary, then I could start really throwing my weight around.