I played my first 1.03 single player game yesterday, trying out a large one system map with 7 hard AI economists.  At first when I read the change log, I thought that the diplomacy changes seemed like good ideas (longer mission times, smaller penalties for failure) .   However, in practice, I think they may have gone a little too far in making diplomacy easier to succeed.    With the extra time for each mission, I was very easily able to get peace treaties with five opponents, and could have had them with six if I was not a cheap bastard.   If this is the normal course of events, then I think the game may be a little too easy under these circumstances. 

My other complaint about 3.1 is that the black market seems pretty much locked at the same prices for both crystal and metal no matter how much I buy or sell.  Is this working as intended? 

I read the sim city thread (or as much as I could stomach anyway), and I am not looking to tip off a holy war here about how the Vasari are screwed or whatever, I am just wondering if the Dev's wanted the prices to remain so static all the time, or if something isn't working right?