LeegleechN

no, difficulty level does not change planet quality.

Even stranger (but perhaps necessary) is the fact that the human player is always the "founder" of the UP, since the only races in it are the ones that contacted the computer player.

Sounds like a cure worse than the disease to me. Besides, any reasonably savvy person can avoid getting viruses/alware by using firefox and not do stupid things.

DanteGiovanni, I believe it is on the top right of the first new game screen. It is a dropdown that defaults to saying "normal".

This is by design.

Arggg, just after I overwrote the endgame saves I need them! I guess I can't play as my favorite race the Korx for a while

I had the "anomalous score" in my first two games as well. I didn't use the cheat parameter or mess with the game in any way. I played as a Korx in both of them, and I know they have "-2" points in the ability choosing screen. Could that have something to do with it? I say this because my third game was with the Yor, and it was not flagged as anomalous.

I don't restart at all, but I often will retire a game in the middle if I think it's hopeless.

I like it fine how it is. I would rather have the extra effort put into other aspects of the UI.

That's exploiting the fact that debt is capped at -2 trillion credits. Kind of cheap.

Throw it into a mod and upload it to the library.

With that many planets I would go appeasement + eventual research victory, but that's just me

The Drengin usually dominate my "tough" games. I'm guessing the AI are less agressive on the lower difficulties, and this obviously affects the races that rely on pure agression the most.

To elaborate, Stardock can't undercut their own customers (the stores).

They seem fine to me. Yes they are powerful, but so are all the other resources. They are just as vital to get and hold as planets.

They're going to recalculate all the scores. They still have all the data they used to score your game, so don't worry about it. You will be rewarded in due time

When you clear or even modify the abilities, they lose the "unpickable" bonuses. You should not modify aliens' abilities if you want to get their inherent bonuses.

The first one I believe should happen automatically. The second seems too specific and complicated. The third is very difficult to program.

Well that might be because you have a limited account on your computer. Make sure you're logged in as "Administrator" when you try to install the game.

A smuggler doesn't pay income taxes

Did you update your graphics drivers, get the latest (1.0X) update, turn on antialiasing , and make sure you don't have textures or bump mapping disabled?

The structure to increase you ground defense is a "farm".

Maybe if those civs have close relations they won't attack each other? I had this happen to me, and when I checked I found they were "close". Obviously it would not work if they were allied either.

Oooh that's mean I bet the ships he was building were super-cheap defenders built on deficit spending. If the AI really was cheating, wouldn't it be more effective at it?

Miborovsky , I don't think that would be very hard on the computer, I think it's more just a matter of programming resources at Stardock.