To be honest, I am really jealous of those that are having a difficult time playing. My last game on Obscene was proof to me that chances are I will not lose this game before 1.1 is released. I played on a large map, and managed to only get three planets to my name after the initial rush. Earth mars and one that was like an 8 I think. To make things even more difficult, I chose to align with good from the beginning. Evil just makes things easy. Given the huge production advantage the AI had over me, I began getting threatening messages from the start. Of course I looked weak!!! Anyhow, my strategy was to wait for one of the ignorant computer players like the Dregin to declare war on me. So I just built up some transports in preperation. Also, I built as many decent fleets as I could before the inevitable. Sure enough, it came. I managed to take over Dregi and then make peace. Wash wrinse and repeat. They declared war on me again, I then took over Kona, and one other. Then they made peace again. Now that I am thinking about it, it would have been much easier to use that planetary bombardment tactic that was just posted. I hadn't thought about it before, but boy would it make invasions easy, and doesn't even risk damage to the planet if done right.
In the mean time, tech trading is a virtual gurantee of victory. This was my method. Any tech that I had that was also owned by at least one other civ, I would sell to everyone (especially minors). I figured that if anyone is going to get money from the sale, it should be me. I would also purchase techs, and then turn around and sell the tech to everyone else for a profit. I did this untill the only techs left were the ones that I owned exclusively. I was bringing in insane amounts of money. I then turned around and purchased mining starbases from other races. Usually for enormous prices, but what the hell I had the money. Soon my influence was through the roof.
Then the Aceans delcared war. They had eight planets I think. It took many turns to defeat them, but not because they put up a fight. In fact, I made a special point to never enguage their fleets in combat. They were too slow, so that was easy. I only attacked to clear orbits around planets, kill transports and kill defenseless starbases. I captured every one of their planets except their home world. The cool thing was they never even though about surrender because they still had this incredible fleet (which they did nothing with, how dissapointing). Before I took their homeworld, I opened the diplomacy screan to see what they would say, "you are the leader of a semi powerful race...." Give me a break. It was incredible to see all those yellow ship markers just dissapear in one shot. Good thing I didn't waste my ammo. Also, other races seem to think I am in a losing situation because of the military comparison. I would get some of the AI's "finest ships" on several occasions. Much to my suprise, these often inclueded influence and economy starbases!!!
Anyhow, after this the Torian borders dissapeared because they were located between me and the Aceans. The Dregin borders were long since gone, and all the others were in corners. It is just too easy.
In my experiences, the AI has never put up a fight. For some reason, they just don't make any attempt to put up a real fight. They send transports after me, but they are virtually undefended.
Wow, I am rambleing. Anyway, I guess the point is that along with the less game breaking tactics mentioned above, money is easy. And the military is even easier. Remember, you will always seem weak to the AI. But the solutions is simple, don't fight them in space. Just take their planets.
I sure hope 1.1 can help out those nine plus idiots that oppose me. Otherwise, with 1.1 I think the only way to get a chalenge would be to not use tech trading and not have minor races. This is unfortunate, because I don't think this should be necessary to have a chalenging game.
