Crippling I can beat quite easily when the AIs are "Genius".
With tech trading off, at the very next level (masochistic) when the AIs are "Incredible" I usually fail badly.
The manual reports the AI gets 200% econ bonus at incredible and 125% at Genius. If correct, I feel this is too big a jump. How about a halfway house for anybody like me who can't bridge the enormous gap?