[Atraikius]

I've been playing games with the max systems set at 100, large map, low starting tech level, med tech cost, high difficulty, and low AI bonus, with 2000 RP. Then I select the Colonials, Klingons, Norak, narn, Earth Alliance, Pyrochette, Rage, Romulan, Piudon, Sergetti, Xi'Chung from the TDM-Modpack, Q's CueCappa and Phong, the Atraikians and Zorians so I can continue to evaluate and improve them, 1 or 2 from some friends, and then fill in the 20 players with some of the more recent sets from here.

Every one of them has been very brutal, with at least one race being eliminated by turn 50 (other than any I take out), and have found that unless I'm using a playing style that I'm very comfortable with I have to struggle to stay in the top ten, and am frequently faced with AI races that have a good 20 tech levels on me. When I am using a syle that I am very comfortable with, I typically stay between 4th - 10th place and am only slightly behind on tech. One of the things I've found with this set up is the aggresiveness of the races selected makes it almost impossible to stay out of wars to build up, your continuously draining your resources to nothing in order to hold your borders. The peaceful races seem to get hit the worst because for some reason the psychotic races don't seem to like them (have never seen either the Rage or the Zorians make friends with them, yet I've seen the Zorians with a trade alliance with the Rage and military alliance with the AE while all three pounded the Phong to a pulp)