Harder strategic difficulty?

[Faulty Logic]

What do people think?

After around 5 or so games, I don't find the strategic portion much of a challenge.

[NickAragua]

I'm unlikely to ever use it, but sure, knock yourself out.

[Cpt. Shovedaddy]

One thing I've noticed about the hard strategic difficulty, in the description during advanced start it says that races will become spacefareing three times faster than normal. In game however I have noticed that races take significantly longer to reach the stars on hard difficulty than on normal. Maybe it has something to do with lower compatibility numbers on a hard start but I think having the races master spaceflight early would go a long way to developing a harder, more complex situation early game and help combat the early trade route based federations we've been seeing.

[Mick]

One thing I've noticed about the hard strategic difficulty, in the description during advanced start it says that races will become spacefareing three times faster than normal. In game however I have noticed that races take significantly longer to reach the stars on hard difficulty than on normal.

It's possible that it's just bugged and the difficulty modifier is inverted.

[SuperCactus]

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14464

There's a mantis ticket for this.

[Cpt. Shovedaddy]

Ah, glad to see that it has already been noted, I'm sure the team will get around to it soon enough. On another note, I'm really excited to hear about the new 'Federation points" system as that seems like it could go a long way toward obsoleting the trade route issue I mentioned earlier.

[Platypus]

I'm all for it. Never a bad thing to have more options in my opinion.

Ooh and extra starting options like; Disease Frequency, Pirate Exodus Severity. It's a lot of fun to try to salvage a total crud situation.

[Lord Fiddlemeister]

I would love a harder difficulty for the strategic map, as the increased amount of activities makes the galaxy a lot more lively. Right now, I don't feel there's much difference between easy and hard, apart from more pirates and more warfare, which actually helps the player gain credits and influence thanks to the dispatch missions

[Silverfire]

Honestly, hard strategic difficulty is hard in kind of the wrong ways. I'd prefer like, a 1.5x or 2x extra penalty on all negative influence actions if you really wanted a challenge. Minor for small things, but taking outposts, giving spacefaring, aiding in war would all become very critical decisions.