Ideal game parameters?

[canshow (OP)]

What would the ideal game parameters be for trying to go up against the hardest possible aliens while not generating a game prone to errors and bugs? This is apart from doing a conventional game start and playing against yourself. 

[Alfapiomega]

What would the ideal game parameters be for trying to go up against the hardest possible aliens while not generating a game prone to errors and bugs? This is apart from doing a conventional game start and playing against yourself. 

I did some research into this and found out couple of things:

a) all the parametres that you set in the beggining mean nothing as the game will ammend it all the time per random chances
b) there is no way to guess when you will enounter the enemies so they can invade you after 10 years or 200

= best possible way to make it hard is to up the difficulty, make everything random, add more NPR's from the beggining, start pre-newtonian and pray that it will work out.

[kks]

Playing against yourself can make it a lot harder in combat/ship design, as your "enemy" isn't an AI, but in this case you know when and whom you encounter. So the game is more predictable. And also managing two or more empires is a lot more work than just one.

[SteelChicken]

I start with 200% difficulty, add a bunch of NPR's and then use SM/designer mode to beef them up. 

[Wolfius]

Up NPR generation chance, turn on Invaders, impose self-limitations and RP all kinds of things that don't mechancally benefit you but consume resources and production(like building lightly armed police/customs and 'coastguard' ships, spreading your industry and research out more, build commercial stations and outposts, etc).

Also you can use the warming/cooling disaster.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

at the start of the game, use SM race (not the player race) to generate systems. Delete ones you don't like. When you get one you like, start an NPR in it and set its minerals really high, like high enough to never run out.   Do this for a few systems and turn off NPR discovery chances.  You won't know when or where you will encounter these NPRs, and as long as you didn't do the generation on the player race you won't have the systems pre-ID'd.  Without NPR discovery chances they can't roam the universe and slow the game down by generating NPRs that are meaningless to you.

The high minerals are to stop the #1 killer of NPRs: Mineral crunches. Mineral crunches kill player starts all too easily, and NPRs don't get the benefit of starting in the rich Sol system.  Give them high minerals so they never get stuck. If you invade and take over an NPR homeworld, set its minerals back down accordingly.

You could also set up one of the NPRs as the Big Bad Granddaddy, with at least a couple tech levels on everyone else.