Question on difficulty

So far, most difficulty levels have been easy, at least with a tiny galaxy. I've tried one at each difficulty level from normal through crippling. Just started my first masochistic game now. Try selling all your technologies (for the purpose of keeping your opponents poor) and building lots of constructors on every planet. Works for me.

(And then come join the Diplomats Empire! )
~SDC~
[Message Edited]

Slothrop -- good luck selling techs on maso -- they usually aren't buying.

Since the game came out, the AI's gotten smarter in terms of behavior, but the AI abilities (like econ, morale, etc) on most levels have been reduced. So it's hard to say if it's "harder" or not. Certainly it's better

As vincible said, there has been alot of changes to the game since it came out.

What i found when i started playing was normal was actually to hard for me, so i played 3-4 games on cakewalk before i really starting getting a grip on the game.

Hope you decide to start playing again - its a great game

As others have said here. The AI is definetly smarter. But once you get to know the game a little, it's manageable up to "painful". At least for me, and I am no big player, unlike the many Admirals and Vice Admirals who already replied. I've been playing a few games at each level, trying to go up, but now that I've reached crippling, I get crushed in avery short time. (:(
I'd say, painful, when you manage to get there, is really a good challenge for once-in-a-while players.

Some primary exploits have been axed and winning the favor of the AIs takes a kind of flare and cunning these days (on Maso anyway) . . . which is great!

The biggest existing exploit I figure is the Ally and Culturaly absorb your buddies route to millitary victory? . . . this as in reality is a hard thing to fix and get a balance for in the game.

Don't get me wrong, it's very tricky to build up the economic momentum to wow other civilizations with techs and wonders but I'd love to see races (esp evil ones) backstab the player if an oportunity presents itself . . .

(i.e. Alpha strike unprotected collonies either culturaly or millitarily, use Terror Stars for crying out loud or take them the *&#^ out of the game, reduce the trade values of astonomically over-valued millitary techs the AI falls for every-time you offer it to them 'Disruptors, Spash Damage, Deflectors' . . . etc etc)

Vulturing is yet still another big exploit too which I must admit I've used alot in my games ever since I started playing . . . there should be somekind of retribution for stealing techs too!

But offcourse we've all hear these things before . . . mabye things will be different in the expansion?

You can put me on the list that thinks that the cultural attacks need to be fixed. I have a long list of masochistic wins, but compared to the top players of this game, I suck.

It's so easy to win at Masochistic just by building constructors. It's an even bigger joke since I get military victory points for doing it when I destroy the last planet for ships.

I don't think this is that difficult to fix. The AIs just need to be able to detect when a cultural attack is occuring, right now they can only do that if it's in the same sector, not adjacents ones. If they could simply detect me doing it, I'd never be able to win this way again, because they're always more powerful than me when I start the attacks (at Masochistic anyway).