Masochistic

i dont comprehend how to beat this difficulty

Try it on the slower tech speeds

The key at the higher levels is diplomacy. Trade, Trade, Trade then Trade some more!!!!! Also start the game with 20-30 pt boost in diplomacy. The AI will be willing to trade a lot more with you. This will help. Bye For now.

Practice the early game. Start a few games and quit after the colony rush is over. See how much tech you can acquire from research and/or trading. See how many people, planets and income you have. Experiment with different rush buying patterns, and see which ones have better results, a player can rush buy ships, or buildings. Experiment with different tech paths and see how that unfolds. Learn about the slider settings and how to use them intelligently.

There is a lot to experiment with. I could write word for word all that I do during my first five or ten or 20 turns and most players would do a lot better. However, it would be meaningless because they didn't learn it themselves. Besides, I am sure that what I am doing is less than optimal, but it is good enough to win at the highest level the majority of the time. Some one will discover a better mousetrap than me, and I will learn from them.

Players that are struggling at the game, often dig themselves a deep hole during the first 20 turns, before the first shot is fired, or even the first military transport is built.

I believe that most players can improve by at least 20% with a few practice runs that take less than one evening of time. GC2 doesn't require the precision of some games so it is still fun, not painful. A good start helps a lot. A mediocre or poor start is difficult to recover from. Most players that are struggling probably have a lot of room to improve during the crucial first few turns, and the map only has a part to play in it.

Hi!

I dont understand how to win in masochistic...

Masochistic level is currently far to big jump in difficulty from crippling to be fun. It's hard work and it's turtling around and is not choosing your own course of the game for most of the play time, and is vulturing the spoils of wars of others, until you manage to grab enough planets and resources to become competitive. And "enough" means about double the amount the leading AI has.

A few suggestions, that worked in my games:
- Diplomacy and trade routes are keys to survival. Both give a "+" or "++" in relations. I need those + badly.
- I can't compete in all fields with 200% AI bonuses they have not only in econ, but also in research and production, and ~+5 in sensors, and ~+20% in range, and unknown in influence. So pick your path of development carefully. I usually go for best planetary infrastructure, supported by lots of econ starbases.
- "slow(est) tech" and "no tech trading" make things even worse. In games where I could trade I was at mid-game the (or close to) tech leader. In a game without tech trading I was a tech underdog.
- "Vulture" mode: I usually wait at the edge of wars with fast troop transporters and constructors and pick planets of weakend AIs (abusing AI's habit to kill all defenders prior to send there troops), and galactic resources, whose starbases were destroyed. This way AIs do the hard part, but I get the bonus. In my current game I have starbases on ~15 resources (80% of all in the uni).
- I avoid wars with strong AIs at all cost, and wars with close neighbours if I can. Even a weakend AI player with half my planets usually gets significantly more money and has higher production than I have.
- At least some military is needed, to avoid getting "--" for weak military in relations. Currently I use cargo hull with 3 cheapest and different weapons, each attack-1. In orbit (where it stays for most of the game) it shows attack 6.
- (recently learned, probably valid only until game version 1.2) If AIs don't use much of defenses, go after them with "horde": lots of small attack-only huls. This way I need to research only weapons and logistics (with some propulsion and miniaturization).
- Advanced espionage helps with obtaining some tech peacefully, but in "no-trade" game it's very random. In my current game I got "tri-stronium armor", and some turns after that the "beam wepons theory".
- Patience and perseverance are another two keys to victory, as those maso games progress for me very slowly. But after I got relations with most AIs to normal or friendly, after wars among AIs start and can play my "vulture" game in them, I'm in a good way to victory, either a military, or diplomatical.
- A cheesy way to get planets is culture bomb: 10 constructors to build in one turn a fully upgraded influence starbase close to their biggest planets. Somehow I NEVER got a "-" in relations for that in a game I won diplomatically, and I've "eaten" half of the universe that way.

My 2 cents ( * 10).

BR, Iztok

Iztok Bitenc - Great post.

There are many ways to play, I can only say the way I do it.
Which is completely different than your way
Most important thing on high levels is to stick with it.
You are going to be bottom or near bottom in most things.
The thing is to make sure that you are not bottom in the things that count. I play on no tech trading, random sized galaxies and number of opponents (I ctl-n any huge+gigantic maps as my laptop doesn't cope). I take whatever position the game throws at me. I actually like close neighbours. I tend to run a large economy, high morale with large pop planets (I ignore all planets under pq 8 – unless it is to raise them to the ground with mass drivers). This makes me able to resist invasion and gets the extra income. I head for all the soldiering techs (after getting a decent government and economy on track). This tends to make my planets difficult for the AI to take. I tend to start wars as soon as I’ve got planetary invasion. Often while others are in planet rush phase. Strike at the most developed enemy planet you can. Make sure you use tactics that don’t destroy all those nice buildings the AI’s bonuses have built. Focus on one AI planet at a time and concentrate most if not all your fleets. Knock out planetary defenders and then invade with as fast a transport as you can. Preferably all in one turn. Usually you steal a tech (sometimes catching up a whole unexplored branch of the tech tree). Rinse and repeat.

The AI often has air superiority, get used to it. There is no penalty for it. I find it so funny watching fleet after fleet sit in my airspace with nothing to kill (I use no defenders), while I’m taking the AI’s planets. You do need to make quick strike forces to take out enemy transports and planetary defences, just try your best to keep them out of trouble. Over time you can refocus, strike taking out another enemy fleet and then withdraw.

Head for techs which will make a difference e.g. Sensors 4 – for “Eyes”, Gal Stock Exchanges, NLC’s. The AI doesn’t do this. Make your planets work better by putting the right buildings in the right places. If you’ve the money then rush build the good galactic wonders. Keep taking risks and don’t be afraid of knockbacks. If you don’t keep on the offensive the AI will eventually just ‘out resource’ you.

Don’t be afraid to take out starbases as soon as the AI starts building ones that matter. Even if it means war with someone who you are currently friends with. If you let the AI build 2 or 3 monster bases (no matter what the sphere) they will win. I will only start trying to do them myself when they are really deep in my own territory as I can’t ensure air superiority anywhere near the front line.

Every now and again try to bribe the top nation to wage war on the next largest. Just make sure that they don’t just mop up their planets. You may create a monster (in practice I’ve never seen it happen), but you need to keep gambling and keep the AI busy doing other things than ganging up on you.

The hardest thing as I said is not to get dispirited by looking at the graphs early on. You WILL be bottom. Often I’m way behind on most of them right up to the point that I win

Sorry for the long rambling rant... hope some of it helps.

Also, put a lot of effort into making your opponents go to war with each other, easy trick to get their attention and resources from the development and especially you ^^

xpyre doesn't that make everyone wnat to attack you?

Remember everyone has their own style.
The key for me is diplomacy if you have tech trading. If you are playing no tech trading then the key is economy. If you are the best diplomat with tech trading you should have no problem with money and tech as you can trade for cash and tech. It does become more difficult with tech trading off. In this case you have to get a real handle on finances. The most important techs for me are the government and good -evil techs. These improve your diplomacy and give you bonuses that help you compete.
Example:
suicide, gigantic level
You will lose the planet rush so getting neutral civ for the NLC and the extra tiles is critical to me. I will end up with a few planets but they will all have a huge population (I grab only the biggest as I usually have only a few col ships).

Keep your taxes low to keep the pop growing and as the pop increases you will get the cash and then can raise your taxes.

Before my first war I often end up with only 7 or 8 planets but trade to be best in tech. Each planet has a large population. Then when I build my 1 or 2 fleets of fast ships (throw in 2-4 engines depending on the situation) I have the tech to make them dominate. Then I send that fleet to destroy another races entire fleet (I choose the high pop and low tech race closest to me). While that fleet is destroying all the other races ships I build a few fast interceptors and then fast transports. After that first war the game usually is pretty easy. The reason I say this is that once you have a very strong fleet and great diplomacy you can start picking and choosing how to eliminate all competitors. If they get a new tech you trade for it and when your fleet is no longer dominate have them stop by a port and update them to a stronger newer design. I know it is expensive to update the one or 2 fleets but with the experience those ships have you want to keep them alive.

Spin control center helps a lot to project military strength, at maschositic it won't put you to first, but it will keep you from last place.

Races that have the same alignment with you will tend to be friendly, work at trading with them to further impove relations, and you can then ally with them and trade for their weapon techs.

If they are attacked, you can easily refuse to join in without much penalty.

Not had a chance to play the new patch yet. Is there still a massive gap between crippling and masochistic?

Answering my own post, yes there is. Crippling's a fair bit harder now because the AI makes better use of its planets, but that took me all of one game refining my strategy to overcome.

This is really frustrating. I love the game, but there's no appropriate difficulty level for me to play it on.

Do Stardock even know this problem exists? If not, what's the best way to bring it to their attention?

Generally I find the AI's with just 3 planets ( or at least from what I can see are only 3 planets) I rarely ever see the AI minor races with more than 1 planet shame about that.. Anyhow..

I build up a 3 wave fleet for each planet and send them out. The first pounds out most of the planets defensive ships the 2nd wave comes in as reinforcement ships and takes out the next ship produced the 3rd wave which sits off by a 2 grid point from the planet is the transport ship which them swoops in and takes the spoils..

Just make sure you have a researched past plasma up up to phasor, get 1 or 2 miniturizing and all planetary invasion techs. Only use the small ships with 2 weapons get expert logistics so the fleet is of good size. The transports should only have the advanced troop mod on them if your tech goes up enuff for the huge hull just put 5 of them on it and you can take any planet. Try not to take out the Minor races but get alliances with them if you can. Then once they are the only ones left wipe them out.

What all this does is give you some quickly built up planets, less folks to declare war on you and a legion of allies that the AI will target resources on as well.