Is there actually any chance to prosper as an Minor Empire in Delta Quadrant?

I play this mod a lot, but after some time it became extremely boring to play as a major faction. Usually even on highest difficulty + challenge mode in first 100 years it´s over and the rest of the game is just war with Borg....

But then I tried play as a minors and it is a perfect experience. Being able to build the empire based on ST minor species and mix the cards of galaxy in your own way is the best thing in STNH.
Ofcourse, I figured out thx to presets, its impossible to win the game with a minors on highest difficulties (pop difference and AI boosts are just too high). The best choice I found is Commodore. For example as Dosi, it took 100 years, but in the end I was able to stop Dominion spreading and then to form my own little Dosi federation in Gamma Quadrant.

As a next step I wanted to play as minor in Delta Quadrant. And I chose Zahl as my new game. Its interesting species with uniqe shipset. But no matter how hard I try, Borg always ruin my days.
It takes atleast 15 years to be able to invade some other minors and get more pops from them. But around 2165 Borg always come to visit me with 30k fleets, adaptation and 3 Unicomplexes as backround (my fleet is at 4k at maximum at the moment).

I tried a lot - Lower difficulty, Scaling On, Adjust AI to diff...nothing works.

Anyone experience with this? Any kind of trick to be used here?