The Icon(s) found on the opening MV player selection screen are "Achievements" that you have earned.  So that is saying that you have "Achieved" at least Cakewalk difficulty.  Since Cakewalk is the lowest level, it is always available/present until you "Achieve" a higher one.

After you submit a game to the MV, you should end up having a new military rank added to your screen also (Ensign)

For more on Metaverse medals, go to this post: https://forums.galciv2.com/164127

The difficulty level shows the average rounded down to the lower rating. 

The alignment seems to take the straight average as far as I can see.

Welcome to the Metaverse LedZerggelin.

Lately at least, there are two dominant strategies which people have been using.  The ZYW (Zero Year Win) and "Swindle".  The first is a superfast rush to destroy the enemy AI within the first year...13 turns being optimal for scoring, and usually using Spore.  And the latter is basically an all-diplomacy strat that exploits some unsual holes and idiosyncracies in diplomacy coding to make the AIs give everything they own to you.  The AI is completely incapable of dealing with either strategy and has virtualy 0% chance to win.  So if you just want to simply win and score points these two are likely the best.  If you want a game thats actually a challenge, avoid them!   If you want details on either of these, I'm sure we'll be able to answer any questions you may have.

There's also the "all-x" strategies, all-labs or all-factories, but they do not work as well in TA because the way focus works was nerfed.

Sentient species taste better...

LOL, well that's kinda the "Tell me everything about the game and how to do it" kind of question- but I know where you're coming from.

No matter what, Suicidal is hard. Its called Suicidal for a reason.  The AI (esp if yer like me and use Max CPU) is crazy smart, and they get massive bonuses nearly across the board.

So either you have to exploit the AI, or you need to out-maneuever the AI.  Out-maneuvering is very hard, because you really need to beat the AI at the colony rush while maintaining economic solvency.  While the best players can do this without 'help', for a more 'casual' player (though few are casual at Suicidal), in DA/TA Super Breeder and Super Hive tend to be the most beneficial for out-colonizing the AI.  Really here its just a Broad Approach: Out Colonize, and Weaponize/Attack Early.

If you plan on exploiting, its about Quality over Quantity. You don't need every world, just the good ones.  This is a much more Strategic Approach.  A group of high-PQ specialized worlds is worth MUCH more than a handful of low-class, generalized worlds.  You have to really be conscious of your decisions, and take a long term approach to the game.  While Super Breeder and Hive are useful still, Super Diplomat and Organizer, and even Isolationist play well into this strategy.

Very few players have actually mastered the Suicidal Difficulty.  Some of us have Suicidal wins, but generally those are ZYWs, and those are NOT representative of the hardness of those games.  The hardest difficulty level that I have beaten for a full large map, is at Masochistic.  I've tried my hand at the two higher, but so far still lack the ability to take on the AI- mostly because I'm not aggressive enough.

Motti has beaten a "full-type" Suicidal map, as have some others. Unfortunately, many of those veteran players have seemed to gone missing, or at least quiet, over the past few months leaving the community the more sorry for it.

In any case, just play at the level you feel comfortable and have fun at.  Cakewalk through Challenging the AI doesn't have its full algorithms and gets a econ penalty.  At "Tough" the AI is at full intelligence without any bonuses.  Painful and Crippling the AI gets some econ bonuses.  At Maso and above it gets bonuses across the board.

I've played similar to this type of game, but haven't seen the diplomacy holes that some have claimed to exploit.  Then again, the vast majority of my non-ZYW games have been in Dread Lords and the diplomacy holes are apparently in Dark Avatar. 

The game I'm playing now is DA, but I haven't used the exploits that I've heard about.  From what I hear, they take some micromanagement that puts mine to shame in an economy size way.  I don't have the patience for it and give my respect to those who do.  Points are nice, but not worth it if the game becomes tiresome.  That breakpoint is different for each of us.

The all labs strategy is one of my favorties.  It's much easier than the all labs strat and your military, while not superior in tech, is massive.  Sheer numbers can overwhelm tech in a very satisfying way.   

Nice!  A whole weekend of gaming....its been too long since I was able to do that.  I havent tried an abundant immense or gigantic map, because my computer cant handle it.  The largest I've done without the two expolitative strategies I mentioned above is huge all-abundant, suicidal.  I like the all-factories strategy.  With all-labs I get frustrated with the slow build times of improvements and ships, but it is a great strategy to try to be competetive on tech.

Loupdinour has a strategy I describe as super-influence.  Using Korath, Dark Influence, and the fixed MCC, it's basically a influence-bomb strategy, where waves of planets flip to your side once you get it going.  Havent tried it myself yet, but it sounds really cool.

Sentient species taste better...

Silverbeacher has started a nice thread on empires at the start of this year. The links to empire "home threads" were broken by the recent forum updates, but you can get to the threads by deleting stuff between .com/ and the the final thread number.

Also, if you haven't noticed already, some of the empire banners like the ones you see here from KP & me are also links to our empires' home threads. The Kzinti appear confident enough to make new recruits hunt a link, but us humble Gerontocrats know how easy it is to get lost on your way somewhere.

Also some more, please don't mistake me as disagreeing with Motti here even though I did do some possibly-gauche recruiting talk. For me, the important subtext of what I quoted is that rankings are far from the only reason to muck about with an empire (although I have to confess that a new, active new player could help us geezers keep our middle-of-the-top standing). To shop "personality" stuff, just poke around other threads in this Metavese category. Several of them are pretty much all about ritual taunting, which can help you find a good match.

If joining a powerhouse is your first goal, I suggest rooting through the AltMeta. Scores age out faster there than they do in the official Meta, so you'll get a better idea of who's playing hard these days as opposed folks who piled up great scores a while ago and then moved on.

EDIT: A single character can only belong to one empire at a time (but you can move). To be in multiple empires, you'd need to maintain multiple characters. (Some folks have done this for the Metaverse League.)

Hmmmm, I cant find an answer to this on the Meta threads.

Does galaxy size factor into your final score for a game? Do you get more point for a larger map? Cuz right now I only play small.

yes and no....

from what we can gather/infer each map size has an "inherent" score; though each level is not that dramatic from the direct previous (but Tiny to Immense is a big jump). 

So a game score is- very roughly- (Inherent Value + Earned Score {the military, social, research scores earned in game}) divided by game turns.  That is then multiplied by the Game Type to give you the score that comes up on the Victory Screen.  Conquest victories are worth the most, then Ascension, Influence, Technological, and lastly Diplomatic.

However, the "Earned Score" component does not directly correlate to whatever you may see on your status screen.  A good player will see his score worth 2-3x or more the sum of those totals.  A poor player may see it only being worth 50% of its sum total.

the first one, because the Combined Score value (Earned Score) rises MUCH faster than the degradation due to game length and Inherent Score.

So you know though...games where you build everything up, lovingly called "Mumblers" after a GC player that excels at them, are EXTREMELY tedious and have lots of micromanagement.