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!

Good question, I know longer no the answer. I think this changed substanstially from v1.2 to v1.31. I think there were added levels at the 150% and 175% bonus levels, but the exact names and bonus values I'm not sure.

There's a slightly more current thread where this same question is asked.

What do the different AI levels do?

BTW scattered and loose clusters both give around 500 planets in a gigantic galaxy vs. about 250 for tight clusters. I prefer loose clusters over scattered because there seems to be more "structure" to the galaxy. Give it a try and see if you prefer loose clusters over scattered.

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?   

Good question, I know longer no the answer. I think this changed substanstially from v1.2 to v1.31. I think there were added levels at the 150% and 175% bonus levels, but the exact names and bonus values I'm not sure.

These would be between Crippling 125% and Masochistic 200%. My new game is still at v1.2 since I just wanted to change the difficulty level and the number of planets.

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.

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.

In this game, like my last I set all to Friendly so that I could start trading with everyone as soon as I had the Universal Translator. I'll have to see what happens when I post this game; I hope it is counted as a Suicide!

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.

Masochistic - getting jiggy with a girl who outweighs you by more than 100 lbs. Obscene - letting your best friend video 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.

Maybe I'm wrong...

I play regularly on the Masochistic and Suicidal level -- but I play slow developing games. I play conquest-only -- but once the initial colonization phase is over, I stay put and build, build, build (I normally get ALL Galactic Achievements and Trade Goods). When I'm ready to start wiping out the galaxy -- my planets are all COMPLETELY developed- all tiles in use. Not saying it's any great skill to do so -- I'm just more of a mercenary and trader than the Korx... but my point is this:

By this point - I've not only got completely developed planets, but also well-balanced planets (no planet too populous to keep high morale, few planets with negative balance sheets). My tax rate and Industry allocation are as high as they go...

... but "high as they go" seems to have an artificial limit.

For example -- if I move my tax slider to 80% -- even if at 80% my morale is still in the 90% range, I can go no higher... moving tax rate to 81% equals a 1% morale.

Same thing with treasury... There seems to be a limit to what I can have in the bank -- ~20K, even if I'm at +2K per turn, my income falls dramatically once I cross a threshhold until I get back under 20K in the bank... then it magically shoots back up.


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

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

Based on feedback from Brad in this thread the GalCiv II Wiki - Difficulty Level page was updated to reflect that on Painful/Gifted the AI gets a 5% bonus. However, Brad never said which factors receive the bonus; the Wiki says economic but at Masochistic/Incredible and above it seems like the AI is also receiving a bonus to military/social/research production and possibly influence. I've played both at Masochistic and Suicidal, and I did not notice any difference in the AI. So that brings me back to my original question:

What is the Difference between Masochistic/Incredible, Obscene/Godlike, and Suicidal/Ultimate?

If I can set the game difficulty independent of the AI level, what is to stop me from selecting Suicidal and setting one or more of the AIs to a low level? Now I have one or more dumb AIs I can exploit through tech trading and later easy target(s) for invasion.

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.

It sounds like a Influence bonus comes into play when you hit Obscene/Godlike. In my DL 1.2 suicide game I had no trouble growing my population far faster than the AI with my 70% bonus and keeping morale at 100% for another 100% bonus. As my population grew so did my influence and nearby enemy planets flipped regularly. In my first DA (1.6B2) game I could only select a 40% pop. growth bonus so I'm 2nd behind the super breeder Torians.

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  

postscript: I haven't looked at suicidal in DA yet, I'm only at tough, however, bear in mind you wont receive the 200% bonus so add 100% to what ya see. Also, I wonder if ya get extra worlds too????

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 ]

Hi!

That's the question that bugged me for quite a long time. With my spies checking AI planets I finaly got an adequate answer, and updated GalCiv II Wiki - Difficulty Level page.

BR, Iztok

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...

I haven't been able to determine the exact reason for the tax income boost associated with my pop 7B world, if you like I can tell you relevant data such as improvements built,type of world, tax rate, etc...

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

Why?

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.

Hi!

Why what?

I'm not the right person to answer to why. It's not my game. Ask developers.

BR, Iztok

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