Difficult victories!

Is it even possible...

from GalCiv2 Forums
Ive been looking at galciv.wiki and saw the difficulty levels. On Masochistic the AI gains 200% production

Has anyone won at this insane level of difficulty? If so tell us your story and how achieved at this insane level.
6,081 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One thing that Frogboy said he was going to add, but hasn't yet, was being able to fine-tune the difficulty. That is, if 200% is too much of an obstacle, you might be able to try 190% or 180%. (I.e., being able to explicitly enter the resource handicap the AI gets.)
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That would also be a REALLY good way to prevent those "AI is cheating" types. Make the difficulty slider into two separate ones, for economic bonuses and for AI scripts. I'd love to play the Intelligent AI only, but I'm not good enough yet. Giving it a few penalties would be much better than playing a dumb opponent for my learning curve.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My last game I played at Maso level on a large galaxy and all 9 majors. Needless to say, Frogboy is correct, the AI is alot better than in GC1. I played for 5 nights after work to complete.
I used the same stategy has in GC1 which is too stay out of combat as much as possible and be diplomatically superior (started with 50 diplomacy). I was able to trade techs for reasonable costs with high diplomacy. This is one of the keys to playing the higher levels.
However, I was lucky in a couple instances with surrenders to me (or my 1 friend at the time) in the mid to later part of the game. If the surrenders had gone to an enemy opponent, I'd been hosed. By the way, it was an political victory.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
for some reason this post wouldnt show up even though I made it?...
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Has anyone done it WITHOUT a high diplomcy skill? Due to the necessity of tech trading I am beginning to think it is night impossible to keep uo unless you have a very high diplomacy.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've beaten the AI on masochistic without high diplomacy.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Howd you do it Norin?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Braggin
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can make a lot of money tech trading even without high diplomacy. You just need a lot of buyers. Buy a tech that a few AIs have and sell it to all the rest. This will let you stay current in tech, it evens out the AIs so no one becomes too powerful, and it makes you tons of money. And you can get a diplomacy advantage by building the diplomatic translators and researching the diplomacy branch of the tech tree, which the AI seems to completely ignore.

Also, ship designing and fleets make combat easier in GC2 easier than in GC1. The AI fleets are usually made of a mix of modern ships and obsolete ships. My fleets are made entirely of modern ships and they win each battle with low losses. Surprise attacks are very devastating to the AI especially if they are already at war. Once you get a military resource, you are truly unstoppable.

I've only got one complete metaverse game in my profile. It was against 9 AIs on a large map, playing as the Drath with default stats. I won by influence, but my early victories were by combat. Influence was just the quickest way to win once I was dominant.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There's always the element of luck too, a faction surrendering to you can give you a quick boost, along with planning wars carefully.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, if a civilization surrenders to you and they have a low approval rating it will drag yours down. Way low.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I thought the Collectors' Edition promised new, intermediate difficulty levels?
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A powerful military is a really good way to make up for lack of diplomacy. On maso / suicide games I have noticed that conquering planets and trading peace treaties to nearly dead opponents can keep you fully updated with the latest techs just the same as with an easier settings game.