I just finished my first game, Federation mode on Hard, and found it easy. One of the main reasons being the roflstomping overpoweredness of orbital bombardment. Destroying a building a day? Plus several million defenders? Instead of being the puppetmaster behind the scenes, this makes you into the hand of God, that can crush any planetary defense within a year. There's also the moral implications of indiscriminately killing civilians. And finally, it's unfair to races like Boarines. I hope this is one of the things seriously considered for the next patch. It should either be way weaker, or maybe it should work in tandem with a strong racial invasion force, or it should at least have very serious backlash when used on a race that isn't a full warrior culture.