someone please explain what all this Pxx-P20 talk is

[endoric]

i see the term P20 thrown around a lot. what does it mean?

[Spacesuit Spiff]

Difficulty settings. If you've played slay the spire, it's the same idea. Stacking debuffs

[Shadeon]

P stands for Prestige, which are the difficulty levels above Viceroy difficulty (increases from Prestige 1 to Prestige 20).

Prestige 1 is unlocked after beating said Viceroy difficulty.

[mostly willing]

P20 is basically as hard as AtS currently gets

[Unimportant]

It's just higher difficulty. Give you some debuff from blightrot to double consumption of food to pay amber for each opened glades.

[endoric]

i play on veteran. i do pretty well for a noob. but none of the above explained anything... sorry.

so when i beat veteran, which i am not sure where the end is, i then have P1-P20 on veteran difficulty?

[Lil brekky]

You unlock the next difficulty level each time you win a map on the highest available difficulty level. Check the dropdown menu at the embark screen

[mostly willing]

Originally posted by endoric:

i play on veteran. i do pretty well for a noob. but none of the above explained anything... sorry.

so when i beat veteran, which i am not sure where the end is, i then have P1-P20 on veteran difficulty?

you didn't ask to explain what's different on p20 from veteran in your post or how to get there.
if you beat a single game on veteran - that's it. you can move on to viceroy and then prestige 1. after that you can go up in prestige every time you beat the highest difficulty level. every prestige level adds a modifier to increase difficulty - for instance p1 extends reputation required for a win from 14 points to 18, and p2 makes storms last twice as long (I think, it's been changed recently, you get the idea). p20 is essentially viceroy difficulty with 20 modifiers that make winning a whole lot harder.

[endoric]

ok so i will see this once i play on viceroy level? been doing veteran so far.

[Samseng Yik]

Veteran is OK for "normal difficulty" and getting the feel.
Once your passive tree around level 10, can start Viceroy climbing.
This is of course optional, but is good if you want to test your management

[kory]

You can start viceroy right away if you want, and once you beat it you will unlock P1. After beating P1 you unlock P2. That keeps going until P20. The P difficulties are roughly the same as viceroy just with some modifiers to make it harder.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by kory:

You can start viceroy right away if you want, and once you beat it you will unlock P1. After beating P1 you unlock P2. That keeps going until P20. The P difficulties are roughly the same as viceroy just with some modifiers to make it harder.

I would not advise to start with viceroy though. I tried that during one of my resets, and it was like 1 out of 5 i could win. You are very very RNG dependant then since many of the mitigating factors that you unlock from the citadel are not available:)

[Spacesuit Spiff]

After veteran is viceroy, and then after that is p0, then p1, then p2, etc etc p20. They're just names of the difficulties.

[endoric]

ahh i just beat a viceroy game the other day. i see it now.

so i guess a good method is unlock the citadel stuff then do the P difficulties go back if needed unlock some more and repeat?

[arjensmit79]

Yes the unlocks make the game easier. It's absolutely beatable on the highest levels with little or no unlocks though. So go up in level at the pace that feels good to you. Just keep going up until you lose for example, then wait till you have more experience and unlocks and try again.

The difficulty does not go up very gradually. Some prestige penalties are entirely insignificant and some require you to totally reconsider your playstyle and everything you thought you knew. If there's a particular one causing difficulties, come here Nd ask advice.

[endoric]

the hardest difficulty level so far is that level where my wife yells at me to stop playing.....