Ahhhemm!! i hate to nit pick but are those games for the ToE Silver???
Hehe..i have just done my first ZYW for just under 20K. Did it with standard Korath but it took me till august to complete. Im now going to try a custom Altarian with points spent on speed +1, morale 10% and the rest on research with the tech party as well.
It is rather liberating to play whilst paying no attention to your spending. Not a practice we would want to get into on any other map, but it is fun to just spend spend spend!!!!!