Understanding Game and Xeno Difficulty Levels

[tenbsmith]

What is the difference between the 'game difficulty' level (easy, normal, hard, etc), and the 'Xeno difficulty' associated with each map (easy, average, extreme, etc)? And, what are the affects of each?

While we wait for someone more knowledgeable to come along, I'll start the conversation. As I recall, higher levels of game difficulty increase the likelihood of negative politics and somehow affects the Xeno. Are there other things?

I'm not sure about Xeno difficulty.

MintDragon , you'll probably be o.k. on most of the small to medium maps playing on easy. And, if you're empire goes down in flames, you'll learn a lot for the next time. In fact, my first few games went south before too long. I learned from that and came back stronger. The best way to learn is a combo of playing and reading stuff here.

[Cory Trese]

Xeno difficulty refers to the number and types of Xeno. You control this difficulty level by reducing the number of Xeno on the map.

Game Difficulty, which you set when creating the game, determines the Xeno's aggression, how many turns they plan ahead and how many Credits they get per Population upgrade.

[tenbsmith]

Cory Trese, does game difficulty affect politics?

[MintDragon]

Ah, thank you guys for clearing this up, and creating this thread too. Hope it helps others.

I guess what threw me off is that the number of xeno in the map description correlates to a difficulty rating, and the map itself has a different difficulty rating; but when you start the game, you can adjust both. It just wasn't clear to me.

There are maps with the same number of enemies listed in the game description, but different difficulty ratings; i suppose this is due to the 'type' of xeno races? or just the overall difficulty of the map (xeno placement, etc...)?

[johndramey]

tenbsmith, I'm not 100% sure, but I remember Cory saying something about politics being effected by difficulty. If I'm not mistaken, the duration of treaties, the chances of wars/negative treaties popping up, etc. are effected by difficulty.

MintDragon - I think the same map, same xeno count, different difficulty thing is accounted for by the amount of resources.

[tenbsmith]

johndramey, i agree that Cory has mentioned a link between difficulty and politics in the past.

Above Corey says, "Xeno difficulty refers to the number and types of Xeno." I take that to mean that variations in Xeno difficulty on a map with the same number of Xeno are due to different types of Xeno. Some xeno do seem more aggressive than others...

[MintDragon]

I got some additional clarification from Cory, so I'd thought I would x-post it here...

Jan 20, 2016 10:51:30 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

The number of planets per Xeno AI and the size of the map.

I set those values on the maps when we build them ... easy, hard, whatever.

I test the maps with our self-testing system ... basically I run it and count the number of times the auto-playing player wins. From there I estimate difficulty.

Also I tend to flag levels that use the Dark Terrox or Red Zorga as harder, because those AI are so aggressive.