Thanks for the quick response 
 
I'll try editing the xxx_AI_General.txt file and see how that works.  I saw three race options in each file, I'm assuming each of those correspond to either 2k,3k, or 5k points?
If I did want to manually add the empires instead, how would I do that in the MP simultaneous game?  Every time I try and add more than one empire (as the host) it says something about only being able to add 1.  If I try to just add a computer controlled empire it says it must be human controlled.  I'm probably missing something obvious, but any  advice would be appreciated!