Getting back to the original subject, "What is the Difference between Masochistic, Obscene, and Suicidal?" I'm currently playing my first Suicidal game; the only thing I notice different compared to my Masochistic game is the AI demands more and offers less in deals when tech trading. Also, in this game I selected scattered rather than tight clusters so the map ended up with 475 vs. 286 planets causing a much longer colonization phase (and likely longer conquest phase) to the game!

Couldn't edit. Should be "I no longer know" instead of "I know longer no". This is a classic. Where's Wheel when you need him?   

At v1.2 I think the difference was in how many opponents were set to the incredible (200%) level. In suicidal I think it's all of them. At Maso and Obscene it's less. You should be able to check this by selecting Maso and/or Obscene and log the settings of your opponents. I no longer have v1.2 installed so I don't know for sure.

One thing that happened to me was in my first suicidal game I had selected all 9 opponents as "incredibe" but I also set some of the starting relationships to warm or friendly. This was sufficient for that game to be counted as Maso instead of Suicidal. Just FYI.

Masochistic - getting jiggy with a girl who outweighs you by more than 100 lbs.

Obscene - letting your best friend video in the robust encounter.

Suicidal - thoughts you have as you see the clip of the encounter that your "friend" posted playing on YouTube.

Suicidal - thoughts you have as you see the clip of the encounter that your "friend" posted playing on YouTube.

Suicidal - thoughts you have as you see the clip of the encounter that your "friend" posted playing on YouTube and UnCut.

These hidden limits -- artificially lower "max" tax rate, artificial constraints on treasury, etc seem to exist on higher levels.

The two things you point out have been around basically forever. I agree they could be better documented, but they're really the only ones I know of and they aren't dependent on level.

The only thing that I know that's level dependent is that you can't go more than 2K into debt at the lower levels.

The 81% tax thing is pretty obvious and you just lower it to 80% (I usually keep it to 79% just for some cushion). It really causes no dificulty. The least obvious is the 20K treasury limit. This has been discussed in a number of threads, most recently in the following.

20K Limit

In my game-playing experience, the bump from Masochistic to Obscene is noticeable, but from Obscene to Suicidal it is not. It's even less noticeable if you turn tech trading off. At Maso, I seem to have much more luck having planets flip to me, but at Obscene they seem to flip more to each other than anything.

Allow me to add my 2 cents please... as a suggestion start a game on suicidal with no fog of war enabled (using cheats) do a ctrl-shft-z to your suicidal opponent and look at what ya got! Nuf said...repeat with each of the other settings as required ... rinse and repeat  

Also remember that your original race is now an AI so if you recorded your original data very painstakingly, you can extrapolate the new AI differences. Statistically you need 30 samples or 15 game records to accurately predict the difference using the same AI [i.e. Z must be >= to sample size 30, also watch out for possible aplha and beta errors ]

Excellent work Iztok Bitenc,

I personally still prefer to check everything, whether its in the Debug, or Wiki. Sometimes the game seems to have bugs that skew the stated values. An example? Currently I am studying trade and economic starbases in DA. What useful bug did I find? It seems the problem with ships having destinations without ever moving also applies to the "little" freighters that go between destination. I have discovered that they will randomly hang up at starbases - which if equipped with trade modules artificially boots your trade income for that route. However, knowing this and exploiting this are not the same, since the AI in DA will detect if your freeloading on other AI routes and go to war with them to eliminate the routes, if possible. My examination has led me to observe many such flaws that affect various aspects of the game, such as bonus production of ~.9 with basic factories and starbases versus the stated bonus production of .5 However, as I have already stated, such information is not always useful. The production bonus I discovered requires the dedication of a PQ15+ world to obtain sufficient bonus production for useful non-military ship production. Theoretically the PQ level could be lowered if world position ideally suited more than 4 starbases and as much as 24. Also the bonus drops down to .5 once you add a higher maintenance cost building such as a more advanced factory or powersupply. The list goes on and on though. Like I accidentally discovered a specific condition in a population 7B world where I am currently researching trade where the addition of 1 maximum morale building increased morale from 74% to 100% and increased tax income from 262bc to 524bc but it only happens at pop 7B...

Hi!

After treasury goes over 10,000 BC, trade revenue drops to 50%, and vice versa. One of many undocumented features of the game.

BR, Iztok

That would explain why I haven't been seeing a big difference from Obscene->Suicidal like I see with Maso->Obscene. The bump from 200% to 300% bonuses is big, but 300% to 400% isn't so bad.

Another thing I noticed that seems to be a bug: I'm capturing AI planets on Suicidal and getting really big research bonuses. For example, I've got a new planet with two Invention Matrices on it, and "Planet details" doesn't particularly document any bonuses. 312 research.

Excellent work Iztok Bitenc!
I spotted typos and grammar errors which I corrected.
e.g., Changed Obscene to Godlike and Goodlike to Ultimate

Anyone else notice this bug?
Influence/Morale Bonus Wrong on Planet Summary Screen for Bonus Tiles