[2022] Is it possible to prevent or discourage AIs from researching warp drives?

Originally posted by HappySack: The developers have a fetish for the Unbidden spawning every game as soon as the late-game year hits just because every AI player researched jump drives (or psi-jump drives maybe).

If you want to fight the other crisis or otherwise be able to have fun playing the game then you're going to have to get a mod for it or cross your fingers.

This is actually untrue. You can choose one of the other crisis in galaxy setup. Interesting tidbit of information: all empires have a chance to spawn early, however the swarm and contingency will only roll to spawn early if all there are no Fallen Empires on the map.