Difficulty levels make this game useless!

Hmm. Couldn't you adjust the number of opponents that you start with, or fiddle with the starting conditions in such a way that it makes it harder or easier for you as well? I can't honestly say that I know many people who can handle cripping, so your "surely you can't be alone" may not be the case. If so, well done, try and get the attention of Frogboy and tell him what you're doing so he can beat it.

There are middle grounds, check your manual.

Also, you can mix it up: some races can be made dumber than others, and you can set alliances at the start of the battle, so you could have (for example) you and 2 morons allied against 4 intelligents that don't know any of you.

i dont think there is a middle ground there. it jumps straight from 25% to 100% bonus. there have been other threads complaning about the huge jump at masochistic tho. i agree it is excessive for that much of a jump in a single difficulty lvl but playing at a 25% while tinkering with your settings should prob be the ticket. self imposed handicaps are also an option. play a race NOT customized to you play style and enjoy the challenge of adjusting your style to fit the race. or choose not to build research improvements(only research with base colony and steal/buy the rest), that can provide a real challenge

maybe they have plans to adjust the difficulty to scale more evenly, but if so i haven't seen them post their intent.

hope this helps

it jumps straight from 25% to 100% bonus.

Uhhh, no it doesn't. There is 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%

You can do one really easy thing.

Do you use CTL-N? A lot of people seem to.
If you already do then go to Crippling and don't!
If you don't then go to Masochistic and do...

It is amazing the difference your starting position/planet makes.

Hi!

There are middle grounds, check your manual.

Manual is outdated as hell. It was not 100% accurate even with the game version 1.00.

you can mix it up: some races can be made dumber than others

Did that by accidnet (random intelligence). Torians were only at "genious", while the rest was incredible. They were wiped out before my trade freighter get to their homeworld.

Uhhh, no it doesn't. There is 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%

With what can you prove that statement? Whatever source you can cite I'll tell you this: THE GAME goes from 25% at crippling to ~200% at maso. Please check with it before you post so vehemently.

BR, Iztok

Looking back at my original post I forgot to say I agree with the sentiment of the OP.

I just wanted to offer a method I use to try to fake an intermediate level.

The gap between maso and suicidal is not as big as crippling and maso... which is huge in play terms.

It's only a game...

It's only a game...

The blood of your mating partner will run red as my Korx puppets destroy you.

What is USELESS is ....
Having a vaild point and then CRYING like a little baby about it ...
Instead of articulating it in a clear, unambiguous manner without being abrasive and annoying !!!!

It's only a game...

A damn good one which I'd rather like to play at a challenging but not impossible level!

What is USELESS is .... Having a vaild point and then CRYING like a little baby about it ... Instead of articulating it in a clear, unambiguous manner without being abrasive and annoying !!!!

You know what usually happens when you do that (and I have)? Zero replies. This time I put down an annoying whinge with an abrasive title (and hell, why shouldn't I? I'm frustrated about this and so far I'd seen no signs it's even being considered, let alone addressed)....lo and behold I have 10 replies overnight. Nobody else seems to have had difficulty understanding my post, so you can scratch unambiguous.

Couldn't you adjust the number of opponents that you start with, or fiddle with the starting conditions in such a way that it makes it harder or easier for you as well?

I've tried random everything for quite a while.

Do you use CTL-N? A lot of people seem to.

I never have on crippling, but I've taken to doing so sometimes on masochistic. I've finally got to the point where I can compete on an even footing with the AI in the colony rush (which was extremely difficult!) but I found that once that was finished the infrastructure wasn't in place and I got totally outresearched. So I throttled back slightly on the colony rush, covered every single spare tile on every planet in research labs, including converting the factories I'd used during the colony rush, then switched to 100% research spending. Within 10 turns, the Thalans declared war on me (fair enough, I had no military at that point and they had nowhere else to go) and within 20 they were slightly outresearching me. This seemed odd since I had 24 colonies compared to their 10 and they clearly didn't have 100% research spending set. A look at their planets showed why...planets with 1 invention matrix were producing 80 or more research! In that particular game, the drengi at the same point were producing 10000 research and still climbing! Even if I'd beaten the Thalans (which I prob would have) I'd eventually have died at the hands of the Drengin and their godlike tech.

Maybe I could try Ctrl-N on crippling until I get a very bad starting position.

Also, you can mix it up: some races can be made dumber than others, and you can set alliances at the start of the battle, so you could have (for example) you and 2 morons allied against 4 intelligents that don't know any of you.

Unfortunately the sort of numbers I mentioned above means an incredible AI will steamroll over any lower level AIs, even genius. It doesn't take long before it feels just like a masochistic game with less starting opponents.

play a race NOT customized to you play style and enjoy the challenge of adjusting your style to fit the race. or choose not to build research improvements(only research with base colony and steal/buy the rest), that can provide a real challenge

I've done the first part. I've even tried starting with no racial abilities. Not tried any other self-imposed handicaps yet, but maybe I'll have to.

One thought...is it possible to edit your starting race to give yourself racial *penalties*? If so I could simulate a 50% AI bonus (or whatever I like) that way.

If so, well done, try and get the attention of Frogboy and tell him what you're doing so he can beat it.

How/where?

I can also beat the game easily at crippling and get badly beaten at masochistic, but hell i just keep trying!

I can't honestly say that I know many people who can handle cripping, so your "surely you can't be alone" may not be the case.

Well, I'm going to put my two cents in here because this is something that bothers the hell out of me. Now, I'll admit right now that I'm not that good a player. The whole idea of a "colony rush" just irks me to no end so I just go a system at a time, colonizing when I can, exploring, etc. But here's the thing. When I play with all AI at "Normal" I heavily outclass the AI, no matter how slow I go. I recently finished a game where I colonized all my worlds, built up every tile with base items and researched nothing but warp drives and ship defenses. I did it slowly, with spending split 34/33/33, a spending of 100%, no focus. Then I waited, dropping all spending to zero (I had only 22 world across 16 star systems in the corner of the map) I waited for 100 turns. Then I slowly build up everything. I ended up winning the game technologically after conquering 91 percent of the map...without building a SINGLE warship. I had a military rating of ZERO at the end of the game. I took over the Terrans, the Yor, most of the Drengin Empire, and even had the Iconian Refuge surrender to me without firing a single shot (culturally, for those who might not get it). Now, I turned to a new game a set the difficulty one level higher, at Bright. I did exactly as I did before except that I did not wait any amount of time. I developed 30 planets, got my economy boosted, built defense ships (thinking on higher difficulty I'd need them) and less than two years into the game, I was speaking Drengin and Yor. The combined might of these two empires swallowed me despite my best efforts. They had me outclassed in weapons (I could see that if they focused weapon research) but also in everything else. I got Drengin up to advanced espionage and saw that they had out-researched me 3 to 1. Their military rating was 319 while mine was barely 30 and I had defense ships on every world. The economy was a joke. They brough in more money in one turn then I did in two months.
Now this is just with one increase in AI. I suppose my unorthodox playing methods have something to do with losing and I accept that. I don't care about losing as much as some people seem to. It can be fun fighting for your life. I'm also not saying that I didn't enjoy the game on bright because I did. It was a lot better than normal. But the difference in playing ability between these two adjacent difficulties makes me very afraid to go any higher than Bright right now.

Oh, and on a side note. People whining about Crippling, Masochistic, and the like: I have only one thing to show you...

It would be nice if a player could set AI intelligence and economy bonus on two separate sliders. The function to do the first of these options seems to already be used to adjust the difficulty between cakewalk and painful. The second also seems to be present already between painful and suicidal. Admittedly I have no idea how tough this would be to program

It would be great for the better players to be able to make the game challenging and, for the weaker players it would be interesting see what a semi stupid AI could do with 200% economy bonus.

Maybe It would be possible to have a customisable, non playable race where all racial abilities could be set by sliders and not limited by points. for example, I may want to play against a race with a 200% manufacturing bonus but weapons at 75% of normal strength. Or a race with a 100% bonus to tax income but a 25% drop in planet quality.

I understand that the game is designed to be moddable but I have neither the ability nor the time to learn how to do this. The possibilites this custom race would offer would be endless and would further enhance the replayability of the game.

@ eravenheart

Have you considered creating a scenario with lower starting cash? That would force the AI to expand more slowly in the colonisation rush, possibly allowing you to keep up.

A few things to slightly cheese your way in Maso. (You possibly/probably do all these anyway. )

Tech whoring
============
You can keep up with tech without ever researching anything with tech trading on. Every turn you need to go to the relations screen and look for a new tech only owned by one civ. Even better if it is a minor as your not giving your money to a rival. You just pay cash for tech then sell it to the others... Even on Maso it tends to be that you are not paying more than 4 times more than each civ gives you. E.g. you buy for 400 and sell 8-10 times for 100 each. It really doesn't then matter how fast they research.
This means you probably have to put some points into diplomacy to start with. You also need to be fairly friendly with someone who will give you weapons tech...the Yor seem particularly useless at trading so I generally pester them. As you say trying to keep up on your own in the early part is particularly daunting.
Generally, I have a little initial burst of tech... so that I can research the bare essentials, uni translator + imperial rule + stock exchanges + ethics, but then let others do the work until I can compete.

Manufacturing
=============
Ctrl-N until you get a whopping manufacturing production bonus on your home world and play with tight clusters and make sure you get a decent cluster of planets. If you get the huge 700 or 800% bonus on your homeworld then just add the manuf capital to that and you are really going to keep up for quite a while.

Economy
=======
In general it is all about economy in the early game. If you ever drop from 100% spending you have probably lost. So you need to get your home planet profitable really quickly. Gal Stock Exchanges are wonderful (they are one of the few techs to research yourself). Never trade them away and hope the AI doesn't do them too soon... that way you should keep up.

Keep on the front foot
======================
If you have a close neighbour play to take them out v early as the AI still is vulnerable to you grabbing their homeworld without much of a fight (if they are still in colonise mode and one of the civs has kindly researched planetary invasion for you). Just because you are playing good/neutral doesn't mean you can't attack your neighbour without provocation.

A strategy where you are doing what everyone else is doing, but slower is always going to fail. Keep away from paths the AI choses. If you are ahead in one thing then make that the thing that matters most. Economy and Production are the two where you DO have a chance to get to be ahead of someone (not top... just someone). If you are then pick on them mecilessly. If you are ahead in production build the ships. Attack anyone weaker than you that has a resource mine. You need those to mines to catch up.

The AI does seem to stall eventually, enough for you to catch up so long as you keep finding someone slightly weaker than you, with no friends so that you can kill them. But beware about killing their last few planets because
a) you want to get them to make peace and then build relations back up with them so you can continue tech whoring.
you get a bad name for wiping off their last few planets.

Thanks xpyre. Yeah, I know all about the economy cheese/tech trading approach. I used to use it to beat the game on suicidal. I got bored with that exploit and switched tech trading off. Anyway, I've now worked out how to mod the game so I can choose my difficulty level. I'm going to create a cheap building that gives production and economy penalties and put one on each planet so I can get a challenge at crippling. Actually, I might even leave it on tough.

The reason for the building rather than editing the race config is that racial penalties are capped at zero...the worst you can do to yourself is put such a large penalty that you'll always get no bonus however much you research. The other alternative is to leave it on masochistic and give yourself huge racial bonuses, but that seriously screws up the game balance because you get ridiculous research and production without the prices of anything having changed. Consequently everything happens too fast. 10000 research points shortly after the colony rush as the Drengin had in my last game, that's just ridiculous!

I'll put the xml for the "Nerf Center" up here if people want.

I understand that the game is designed to be moddable but I have neither the ability nor the time to learn how to do this. The possibilites this custom race would offer would be endless and would further enhance the replayability of the game.

It's much easier than it normally is for games. It would take you no more than an hour at absolute most. Actually, to do the sort of things you suggest, the hardest part is finding the appropriate files! The field names are so self explanatory you can mod them without having to read any documentation.

You are right random50 tech trading is cheese... The game is so much better with tech trading off.
The idea of a nerf centre sounds good. I usually put restrictions on myself playing crippling... keep someone alive... no starbases... etc.

I think 'useless' is going a bit over the top, but I agree it must be a little annoying for the players who fall in the 'gap'.

One way of making it easier (or harder, depending what you usually play) is blind exploration - I find its much harder when it is on because you dont know where other races are expanding to, so its harder to expand yourself. with it off its easier to out-expand the AI.

it also doesnt decrease the fun factor as much (IMO) as tech trading does, and isnt quite as cheesy. (I too always play with it off now)

just thought i'd mention it in case you havent already tried it

the nerf centre sounds a decent way of doing it though, and quite realistic - it could model certain branches of the government

@random name!
As random50 says... the gap is very large when tech trading is off.

p.s. are you two brothers with names like that?

As I said earlier, I was frustrated and these threads never receive any attention otherwise...so "useless" served it's purpose.

I like blind exploration, especially on gigantic maps as it keeps you on your toes even if your close neighbours don't seem a threat...who knows what other civs are lurking out there you haven't yet met? In fact, I always used it 'til I switched to masochistic, at which point I felt I needed the info to have any chance in the colony rush.

the nerf centre sounds a decent way of doing it though, and quite realistic - it could model certain branches of the government

Great minds. I considered calling it the "Civil Service".

That's not intended as criticism of any particular country. It's a criticism of all government bureaucray everywhere.

p.s. are you two brothers with names like that?

No, I guess we're just equally as lacking in patience when it comes to finding names some other guy hasn't already nicked.

Random50 hasn't let me down yet...

Actually, I started off trying random1, random2, etc. By the time I got to random8 and it was still taken I'd had enough.

Well, I mean absolutely no offense here to No or to the developers, but I didn't buy the damn game to take it home and spend hours re-writing the whole thing. This is the SAME problem, only magnified, as GC1 that caused me to eventually lose interest in the whole game. I knew how to mod GC1 and did it sometimes, creating new and wonderful techs and all that. Sure, GC2 is easier and more encompassing to mod but damn it! I shouldn't have to re-write the game just to have a decent but not overwhelming challenge.

Yes, this topic gets me hot under the collar, as you can see. I simply am sick and tired of people suggesting Modding the game to people. I didn't buy the game to re-write it. If I wanted that, I'd apply for a job with Stardock. I simply think that this kind of jump in difficulty is something that should be addressed for the benefit of Stardock and upcoming releases, updates, patches, and expansions. It does need to be addressed and NOT by telling me and the others to just Mod the game.

Damn. Now I'm just repeating myself. See what you did, doofus! (Talking to myself here.)

Oh, I agree completely, eravenheart. It's just I'm prepared to mod it myself because I'm not going to wait to see if they'll ever address the issue. I still have no idea how you're supposed to bring it to official attention, which was the other thing I asked in the first post, because it must be such a simple change that I'm surprised it's not already been addressed. Still, at least somebody from the company posted on this thread so at least *one* employee is vaguely aware there might be a problem!