What difficulty range do you most often play with?

[chmjs]

I was wondering what sort of difficulty people are comfortable with. I will freely admit that in many cases two AIs of level 7 can chew me up and spit me out if I make a wrong decision. I always find this a little depressing  as 7 is flagged as "average" difficulty. What are your views on the difficulty scale?

additionally has antone ever lost to a 1-2 even by a serious muck up that just shouldn't have happened?

[Trandrin]

With more then one player 7/7 seem to be easier to handle. Normally by myself I might spice game up with one ai being 8+. Then there are my numerous failed attempts at 10/10. So sadism mostly for me.

[Coppermantis]

Mostly around 7/7, occasionally lower, occasionally higher.

[Nalgas]

I guess 7/7 would be the safest answer.  We went to 6/6 for a while in multiplayer when we had some new people in the group and we were also getting used to a bunch of new stuff in the game, and I go a bit higher by myself sometimes, but I don't think I've ever seriously played anything below 6 or above 8 for any significant amount of time.

[lifenoodles]

I just started my most recent attempt at an 8/8 with two easy diff AI. I've finished the game once or twice at 7/7 or 7.3/7.3 but I think this is my 6th attempt at 8/8. I usually make it till about AIP 300 or so and then just get overwhelmed with CPAs or do something stupid like accidentally blow up the command station on the system bordering the AI homeworld. Oh well, 6th times the charm.

[chemical_art]

My completely subjective opinion...

Below 7: Braindead AI
7: Standard AI
7.3 - 7.7 : A few extra tricks, a few extra surprises
8 - 9.0: The gloves are off.  Humans will be hurt. Human stations will be popped.
9.3: Tech II baby. Now 8.3 seems braindead
9.6: Like a diffculty jump from 7 to 8 but in only an increase of .3
10: Mwwwhaaha cheat legitimately while you can, the AI already is!

I consider 7 "casual" iron man-ish game. 8 and up demand finesse. 9 and up are done without any expectation of finishing.

[mindloss]

I answered 6-7 as that's what I have been playing recently and expect to be moving up, but the majority of my games so far were in the 1-5 region. Specifically, as I was getting to know the game and try out different settings, I'd do a lot of 3/5, 4/6 stuff. I had one or two 2/2, 2/3 games when I was trying something completely ridiculous. I've never tried a 1/1 as "Sandbox" implies to me that the AI probably just sits there impotently and doesn't even spawn ships or something.

And after reading that other thread, I'm looking forward to trying out a 10/10 or three to get my face kicked in.

[zoutzakje]

when I first got the game I played on dif 1 for a while but that wasn't really challenge. After I was done with fooling around and understood a lot of aspects of the game, I moved up to 7/7. I've been playing between 7 and 8 ever since, random AI types and I'm actually winning on 80 planet maps. So I'm moving up to 8/8 as standard in a while. I've noticed that AI types influence the difficulty much more than the difficulty itself. dif 8 easy types are pushovers, while some dif 7 hard AI types can give me serious braindamage.

[Nalgas]

I've noticed that AI types influence the difficulty much more than the difficulty itself. dif 8 easy types are pushovers, while some dif 7 hard AI types can give me serious braindamage.

That's a good point that I forgot to mention.  Some of them are just absolutely evil compared to others, and to some extent it also depends on which two you pair up with each other, too.  I still fear the Spireling after my experience with it before the LotS ships got balanced a bit better (like the number the AI is allowed per guard post/per planet) and it was (and maybe still is) more Hard than the Medium it claims to be.  That made for much more exciting/terrifying games than I had been expecting.  Heh.

[zoutzakje]

I remember incoming waves of 200+ maws early game, but since that's balanced and all I don't have much trouble with Spireling. I'm playing a current 8 spireling/7 vanilla game, and I'm not having to much trouble yet. 80 planets and 8+ hours ingame and I'm still doing fine. Only problem now is getting to the AI homeworlds without letting AIP build up to much.

[Orelius]

I normally play 8/8 Double Golemites.

It's rather fun, in that I have to take in consideration a number of golems that could curbstomp me if I'm tooo aggressive.

[Nalgas]

I remember incoming waves of 200+ maws early game, but since that's balanced and all I don't have much trouble with Spireling.

That's good, at least.  It used to get kind of crazy with the way it could end up with heaps and heaps of blade spawners and stealth battleships everywhere, even when there weren't enough maws around to make the devourer golem look like it'd lost its appetite.  Meanwhile, the herds of tractor platforms picked up the entire galaxy and ran off with it...

[zoutzakje]

heh yeah I remember that... before all the balancing spireling was pretty much impossible to play