[Fyron]

The game does not ship with pre-built empire files, since you would need at least 16 copies of every race to cover every combination of racial points and starting tech levels (full isn't necessary, since any empire file selected will still result in full tech levels at game start). Maintaining all of these empire files with each patch would be a nightmare for Malfador, as would selecting them from the lists. Imagine scrolling through 240 empire files, and that's just the stock races... The game setup code just isn't designed to select a race based on the Empire folders, and still be able to customize whatever game options you prefer.

One possibility might be just a base set of empire files with only 2000 racial points spent, and 0 tech points. This is a flawed solution, however, since it would more often than not result in players starting with an underpowered empire file.

You can generate empire files as the AI would make them yourself, though. Start the game up with the settings you prefer to play with, turn all AI empires over to human control in the Players menu, and use the "save empire to file" feature. Then start a new game and load the particular race you want to use.