Are High Difficulty Levels an issue?

[Victoria]

So I played a game earier this week on the default Metropolis difficulty and cruised home without knowing what I was doing.
This game I am on Empire level, I did reload some combats because they just were buggy or I had no clue but with that aside, now I have half an idea I am even further ahead but the AI does seem to be using better tactics.
So the question is have people played On max (Humankind ) difficulty level? It seems the bonuses up there are good but should be beatable.

Difficulty levels here - https://humankind.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty
But this sentence I got from Amplitude indicates there is behavious changes as well. I think I read someone talking about them, anyone done some decent looking?
"The difficulty gap between Metropolis and Nation is high (because of additional AI behaviors). Please see the game guide for recommendations on which difficulty level to play."

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Trying to keep a uniform basis for comparisons between test games and game-versions, I played all my games on Metropolis difficulty, 3 continents, 6 Factions as a 'baseline'. But I know quite a few of the other VIP Beta-testers played most of their games on higher levels: hopefully, they will be able to comment on the differences in the next couple of days as the VIP Hounds are released before Launch on Tuesday.

 

[Taefin]

I mean, unless they changed it meaningful, humankind (highest) was pretty doable at Victor and closed beta. Once I figured out the early game mechanics I could generally win the first defensive war after which there was no risk of invasion, but the top AI led me in fame until era 4. Provably going to need difficulty enhancing mods to keep the pressure up throughout the game. But any early spinning of wheels was pretty much game over.

 

[Elhoim]

I heavily dislike Humankind difficulty for two reasons:

- The tactical combat is very balanced, and adding +3 to enemy units moves into the "unfair hard" territory.
- The AI doesn't know to hold off switching to new cultures and they are in early modern by turn 80. It really takes me away AND it's a silly move by the AI since they could stay longer in an era and farm stars.

So I always play in Empire, as the combat bonus is +1 plus the AI goes through cultures at a nice pace. I haven't really tried Civilization difficulty.

 

[NombreyApellido]

my small group of players have been at it since lucy opendev, mostly, but we haven't played any press build

we have "house rules" that forbid to reload because it breaks lots of stuffs, some relatively innocuous such as units positioning and visuals, other rather relevant such as road movement bonuses, deeds registering properly and the AI loosing some of its aggressiveness

we've played humankind level exclusively, our top scorer was at 21k points in poe open beta and most of us have temp save files numbered well above 5000

the AI doesn't seem to be fully cooked since in fringe scenarios it will look like it's breaking the rules. i'd say most weird stuff stems from the AI relying on buffs too much to dash through eras, get an early lead and spawn the same units and poorly built cities

on combat you'll often find even when matched in total strength, AI forces will deal huge amounts of damage even with 1 point of remaining health, going uphill and encircled

the most mad i got was the time the second to last AI persona remaining on a run was able to assimilate a grey city that it had no chance of having meet either by themselves or by another faction other than me

 

[Victoria]

they are in early modern by turn 80.

Yeah, even on empire… there is one civ in the modern era over 100 turns before then end with a poor score.

 

[Infixo]

The scaling of AI bonuses is a bit weird. Initially they are +/- percentage yield, then it is +x per citizen slot.
Example: Empire is +30% FIMS, but the next level (Civilization) is +2 per farmer/worker/etc. Late game cities easily produce hundreds of FIMS but employ only 10-15 slots. So, this 30% bonus seems much bigger than +2 per slot.
Anyway, there is no simple comparison between those two levels.

 

[Siptah]

I wouldn't trust these values (not that I have the current ones readily available).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I wouldn't trust these values (not that I have the current ones readily available).

Not to let any cats or ferrets (that may be the first Humankind game 'in-joke') out of any Game Design Bags, but since the middle of July the VIPs have had Builds 27 through 33 downloaded, or 7 'tweaked' versions of the game in less than 5 weeks! Most of these are little numerical/value changes, so please don't think that any numbers/values you see before Release are completely 'finalized'.
I've been trying to keep a file of in-game values, numbers and strengths, and I gave up this last week: I'm about a Build and a half behind and the Encyclopedia is being finalized, so I'll stick with that in the 'Release' version. The files I have may be useful as 'historical data' to see how the game was tweaked in the last months, though . . .