I assume this has been asked before, but couldn't find it. Exactly what is the difference between normal and harder difficulties? Bonuses to the enemy, penalties to the player?

Yeah it has.

Its complicated. The benefits for the AI include more empire approval, less expansion disapproval, expansion cost, upkeep cost, research cost, empire plan influence cost, unit and building production and buyout costs, more base FIDSI and resource income, and unit stats, each in varying amounts and varying per difficulty.



very roughly, newbie difficulty AI has its stats halved and players get a boost.

hard difficulty AI gets 50% better strategics and 25% better FIDSI with +10% unit health, 20% off production cost and upkeep.

serious difficulty gets 2x strategics and 50% better FIDSI with +20% unit health, and 35% off production cost and upkeep.

impossible difficulty gets 2.5x strategics and 2x FIDSI with bonuses to unit XP (so, better levels = better stats) and 50% off production cost and upkeep.

endless difficulty gets 3x strategics and 3x FIDSI with bonuses to unit XP and 60% off production cost and 70% off upkeep.



No penalties to you on harder difficulties, but their lower upkeep means they can afford bigger armies. Cuts to production cost means they pump them out faster. XP means each unit is just better than yours.. Yet, as a human, youve got common sense. They dont stand a chance against that.





You can also change the minor faction difficulty, which only has the effect of making them progress through aggressive 'phases' faster.. such phases as when they produce an army, the cooldown between armies, and when they begin sieging or destroying cities.

The basic overview iicats provided is quite ride, the AI receives bonuses to pretty much everything.

If I remember correctly, on Endless Difficulty they already start with an extra +2 per person FIDS output as well as no disapproval from constructing boroughs. I'm not entirely sure that's still true in the release version, though. I should sit down and create a table in the next couple of days and post it here.

Any idea what difficulty most people who are used to 4X-games prefer to play on?

There are penalties to the player on the harder difficulties (I saw it in a game file -can't remember which one off the top of my head).

IIRC on endless the 60% production cost reduction for the AI only applied to units, instead for buildings the cost was always 1. Source, I bugged the game in multiplayer once into thinking I was an AI because of a desynch, which I only noticed because it said all my buildings costed 1 :P

PaleBluePixel wrote:
Any idea what difficulty most people who are used to 4X-games prefer to play on?

I prefer serious. The highest difficulties are just stupid with the bonuses the AI gets. It makes the early game really painful when the AI can just double whatever you put out.

My preference is also serious (quite a bit of 4X experience, no previous Endless experience). I could go higher if I wanted to optimise, but I prefer to just play the way I find enjoyable (including having no more than 4-6 permanent cities).