I recall Yarlen saying that but I'd like to see how they did it. If they starbase every world then I would put an asterisk by that because starbases completely devastate the AI.

Starbase choke points Build titan and caps and lvl them to lvl 10 when you have enough build some frigates and win game .......

Easier said than done...a vicious AI will be able to spam anti-module ships like none other, so you will unfortunately still have to fleet with corvettes or fighters...they also can buy up to lvl 7 on all their caps, so trying to play the XP game isn't going to work out so well either...

Then there's the early super weapon spam...best case scenario, you only sink resources into spamming SBs on all your worlds with aux gov....

It can be done, but it's a pain in the ass and a long haul that is more boring than challenging...and heaven forbid if there are multiple AIs, because they'll just feed each other the XP to level their titans...

has the patch been released to all?

Still in beta. You can play it though.

ahh right one month more at least

It's always pretty disappointing when the difference between hard and easy AI is only in how much they cheating. 

Yep. the AIs builds shitloads of Ogrovs/Adjudicators nowadays and is going for the kill, starbase-wise. 

Personally, i never played against Vicious nor Cruel, and against Unfair just about 3-times. Last time i played with my buddies we played all 3 against single Unfair and it was quite a challenge - we won in the end though. They tried it both several times without me before and could not do it - and i would not consider them noobs by now, i believe they know everything important to succeed....but if the AI jumps in with 3 capships, when they have just a single one, and they are far away to help each other, i can see how they are fucked at that moment.  

The difficulty between hard and unfair are way too large with this beta

hard is too easy, and unfair is completely ridiculous and requires to fine tune the game to play against the AI weaknesses which isn't a fun game.

Please provide some more intermediate levels between hard and unfair (at the very least at least a level equivalent to the old unfair, and another one between the two would be nice

I just played a 5s game, me + 4 vicious vs. 5 vicious...the game was fairly easy, I used Orkies but never did anything fancy, no minelayers or subverter tactics...just got my titan and spammed carriers, then slowly ate through two players...fortunately their fleets were busy elsewhere while I hit their planets one at a time, so I rarely had any big engagements...by the time I faced a decent size defense force, I had a lvl 10 egg and lvl 10 titan....

However, this was a large team game and my teammates (for whatever reason) were winning on all their fronts...if we had lost on some front, it would have made for an excruciatingly long late game...by the time I had my titan, the AI next to me had 45 carriers and about as many other ships, and that was one of the smaller fleets...by the time I had built my first kostura, most of the AIs had already built a superweapon (the first one was built way early)...in short, the only reason why this game was easy was because the AI is stupid against starbases and my allies (who were also vicious) did really well...I mean, really well relative to the other team...

I did a 1v1 earlier against a vicious AI...I had a straight path of roids, moons, and uncolonizables going right to their HW, so I figured this would be pretty easy...well, by the time I got within 2 jumps of their HW, they already had so many ships there was no way I could Orky rush...I tried to hit their roid (right next to the HW) with an Orky+minelayer combo, and even had some overseers...the classic AI scout spam actually did something for a change and nixed my minelayer strategy....even with half their ships focusing on my egg, my overseers couldn't keep the Orky alive...even when on the defensive, the AI had so many SC and ogrovs it became impossible to keep SBs alive...even with a mid-level VL titan, it just became impossible, they had so many ships and even repairs and overseers couldn't keep anything alive for very long...when they started on their 3rd novalith, I just quit...

I also did a FFA with vicious AIs, but I got doubled early and sitting there with only 3 planets became incredibly boring, so I just quit...

I played a compstomp with some decent players a while back, 7 humans vs. 3 vicious, and most of the people were struggling....even with each AI in suicide and being doubled non-stop, it was a hard fight and for a time it really didn't seem like we were going to win...finally one of the AIs caved after being tripled, and then the other fronts (which were losing) were able to be reinforced...

In short, I have a very hard time imagining that people are regularly beating the highest difficulty...the only situation I see this working is in large team games...it is common for skilled players to do 5v5s with all vicious AIs when ICO has a low player count, but that's about it....

No additional DLCs are planned at this time. As for sequels, that's for Ironclad to decide.

I will keep my money then. 

Well you must give us something more than a happy face its more of a sad face.  Maybe you can ask them and they could hint it to us.  Whats the purpose of changing the AI so late in the game if nothing else is planned as for squeals or DLC?  Sounds like there is more to it than you tell us good sir.....

Ironclad is focused on finishing up Sins of a Dark Age, so once that's done I'm sure they'll be thinking about it. 

Using the beta, I played a 1v1 vs. a hard AI, then played a 2v1 vs. two hard AIs...in both games, I didn't use anything that is notorious for dealing with the AI -- no missile barrage, no uber titan, no SB abusing, no minelayer strategies, no XP milking, nothing fancy at all...I played AL and just colonized and frigate spammed....

The 1v1 was a total waste of time...even with several easy-to-grab planets, the AI expanded significantly slower than me, and took forever to build the resource extractors on the few planets it did colonize...I didn't think too much of that, considering that the AI even on Vicious is easy to outdo in expansion...

The real problem was the pitiful fleet the AI fielded...before v1.82, even a hard AI could outfleet me...in fact, even with the worst AI settings (researcher and economic) the hard AIs would still have a comparable fleet and make rushing a challenge and a risky endeavor in FFA games...out of principle, I researched illuminators, but honestly I could have just stuck with disciples and corvettes the whole game...I didn't even have to fleet hard, and eventually just put the game on 4x and occasionally built a few more ships now and then...

The 2v1 was a little more challenging...I expanded in both directions, but focused my fleet towards only one of my enemies...while I did lose 2 roids to the VL opponent, it was painful watching how long it took the AI to actually take them...meanwhile, the TEC enemy I was focusing on was completely incapable of matching my fleet size...I mean, it wasn't even close, I built 7 or so siege frigates and still had a larger fleet of actual combat ships...the TEC enemy had one SB with no upgrades that caused some losses, but beyond that it was easily wiped and then relegated to some far-away world near its ally...

I then proceeded to focus on my efforts on the Vasari ally...now keep in mind, this enemy had lost virtually no ships to me while I had lost a fair amount of ships to the TEC enemy's SB and "fleet"...eventually, the in-game stats showed it had outdone me in fleet size, but I had stopped reinforcing my fleet for a bit (there was no point) and quickly regained the status of larger fleet...while in the early game all I had spammed was disciples and illuminators, now I decided to mix things up a bit and just spam corvettes and HCs...my fleet of a lvl 10 prog and various frigates easily beat the AI fleet, and once I bombed out 2 of its planets I just put the game on 4x and spammed HCs/corvettes as needed...

I built only 1 SB on the Vasari front, and never upgraded it...the AI never attacked it, and only eventually started helping its ally via a wormhole...I did eventually get a titan, as did the Vasari AI, but their fleet was so pathetic compared to mine that I probably didn't even need one...

I fought 2v1s with hard AIs before this beta, and they were true challenges...at the very least, I'd have to SB a few worlds and would really have to make use of my titan and carriers...this game, I just spammed 4 ship types and easily won...the one thing the hard AI should have been able to beat me at was in fleet size, but even in the 2v1, my fleet was never challenged...once I had half the map (of which the other AI had about half), I just put the game on 4x and waited for the inevitable...

My conclusion is that hard difficulty is now way too easy, and the gap between hard and unfair is so large that the SP experience is severely hampered...I have no problem with hard being changed from the v1.80 state to the v1.82 state if SP guys are reporting that the jump between normal and hard is too much...BUT, if hard is nerfed to this level, then we must have a difficulty between the v1.82 hard and unfair....whether this requires nerfing unfair to the v1.80 hard level (and possibly then cruel and vicious) or introducing a new difficulty level, I am not sure, but we need that level for competent SP players...

I think introducing a new difficulty level between v1.82 hard and unfair would be best, but I understand that would be more coding and UI work...barring that, I would move unfair down to the v1.80 hard level, move cruel closer to the v1.80 unfair level, and probably just leave vicious as it is...

I am begging....yes, begging SD to please not deprive us of this very important difficulty level...I think enough people have expressed how vital the v1.80 hard is to enjoying SP gameplay...