I am thinking of a mod with a totally black screen, where you have to guess where everything is, Very challenging.

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There are many posts (mainly by one individual) on how easy this game is to win.  My post is how to make the game extremely difficult to win or at least in less than 200 turns.

First off pick a galaxy appropriate for the number of factions playing the game, this is what I suggest... ( I know I missed a few but, you get the idea)

5 tiny

10 small

30 medium

40 large

50 gigantic

60 immense

80 insane.

With this many factions in the game it will difficult to colony rush your way to more than 10-20 planets. (even with abundant habitable planets/stars) I also suggest having all the minor races turned on as well.

Resources doesn't really matter (random is fine but, abundant just helps speed things along).

Pirates a must.  the more the better will provide more of a challenge against any colony rushes.

Very slow game pace/technology rates and no tech trading.  (This will prevent you from spamming the AI and trading techs, even fair trades.)

Now choose your difficulty.  I recommend starting with godlike and working your way down as you loose.   If anyone else has suggestions on how to make a game impossible to win, feel free to add suggestions

 

 

Grrrrrrrrr.  Too challenging.  I don't like challenges.  

(Whine whine whine whine whine).  

P.S. But in reality don't try the insane 80 or the immense 60.  The game will probably crash.  In fact I'm not even sure about the computer being able to handle playing any games with more than 20 AI.  

I just started a new game. 

15 Ai, Insane, tight clusters, Rare/Rare, Pirates-rare, Research-Slow, I just stepped up to all Gifted Ai. 

On turn 2, just below (south?) of my Earth/homeworld, I found a class 25 Ghostworld infested with Supersharks!, Hmm +50%, +20% (sharks). Ill put two Manufa near the Colony and have a perfect circle with two research bonuses on the circle along with more hexes to put farms on. I hope I can catch up! Time to rush research buildings!

Good Luck

Here is what I do for a fun game (at least in the beginning)

Play an immense map, Uncommon for ALL planet and resource choices. No pirates, very slow tech, slow game pace.  Have at least 10 AI's and some minors. Most of the majors end up with 12 -20 planets after expansion (depending on start position of course)

One of the Custom AI"s you make be: patriotic, synthetic, focused on expansion, tech, military as it's first three; Diplomacy is dead last. Malevolent ideology. Traits shoud be Aggressive, Cruel, Expansionist, and Xenophobic. 

Give them a 16 quality homeworld. 

For points, please do the following:

-2 to Fertile, Popular, traders, farmers, Agile and Likeable. No one likes them, they don't need food or nookie, and don't move so fast.

You should now have 17 points to spend. 

+2: Productive, Clever, Economical, Observant, Fast, Organized, Dense, Tough

+1: Adventuresome

Give them the Yor Tech tree. 

I'm using some of TurielD's ships and of course, these guys are the Borg. 

It never fails that my UFP and the Borg end up next to each other and they declare early war on me and it's a slug fest for many turns to see if I can get them under control and beaten back. Most of the time, around when I get the upper hand (and have concentrated my forces on that front), another AI(usually my version of Klingons) will declare war on me and I'm back to fighting a two front war, while trying to get enough tech to get a real advantage over them.  When all that is finally taken care of, I realize that I'm only 3rd in the tech race and the Romulans are way out in front. Good thing the Krynn are between me and them. 

If you design some borg-looking ships, send them my way and I'll put them in a faction style - there's already a Borg colour-set included with my mod

That's a big part of the reason I started to mod. I was kinda tired of having to personally design ships all the time, so I started fiddling with the blueprint system so the game would automatically make the ships the way I like them heh.