Best difficulty settings?

[Gared]

Hi!

It's the first time I'm firing up the game, very excited to play it and think everything through carefully. User reviews can't be stressing the importance of it enough.

Keeping that in mind, I'm also looking forward to many enjoyable hours, off with a good start

From your experience, what is the best difficulty setting for the game, if I'm both looking for realistic challenge and micromanaging and tweaking the system so that it runs like clockwork down the line, while not digging myself into unreasonable masochism?

For example, frequent building fires sounds like masochism to me, if the game is forcing random combustions and ignitions here and there, 'just because, uh, difficulty'

Education simulation sounds like fun, actually, because it gives a deeper feeling of that you are actually creating communities. So even if it's pretty hard, I think it's a must have.

Why would anyone disable night and day cycle? It's like outright saying NO to simulation and realism and believability.

Starting with limited funds sounds like fun too, and makes the goal of prosperity even sweeter. But does this mean unnecessary long periods of stagnation, if you've done everything efficiently?

And finally, something I'm especially curious about: Unsatisfied citizens reaction.
Please, explain to me so that I better understand, does it mean that on 'small' setting my citizens will never leave cities or stop working? And that on 'great' they will start striking and moaning and burning cars when times get rough and/or at the slightest lack of fun?
Or does this setting simply mean how fast an invisible progress bar of dissatisfaction fills, not barring from any of its effects?

Thank you!

[argent]

Others have different approaches but I would suggest you just start playing on the settings that interest you. It is likely you will make plenty of mistakes - but that is half the fun of learning. When you have a grasp of some basics you can style a restart for a longer term simulation. As to difficulty, the options as you move from left to right increase complexity rather than make it impossible or stack the AI against you. Enjoy!

[PolygonPi]

Sounds like you definitely want complex education, and full building and vehicle power management. That’s what I did my first game, but with easy citizen reactions and easy money settings. Then you’ve got plenty of leeway, and you can try loads of things and work out how everything works before running out of money.

Personally the fun of my first game was understanding the mechanics, rather than optimising - there is such a steep learning curve that it might be good to not have to worry about making money right away.

I’ve just started my second game but on Medium reactions/money now I know more about what I’m doing.

[Ham]

Unsatisfied citizens reaction: with low setting they do the job even when there is not enough food. Hard -> the left your country when you dont get all the desires.

A limited money settings is playable but you have to fokus on export first or grow up very very slow. But with exportlines there is not so much time of stagnation and you can make adjustments without hurry.

If you build a cunstruction office and buy some excavator you can plan your builduings and you have no cost on terraforming. Thet helps a lot with limited money. After planing you can start build with money.

"For example, frequent building fires sounds like masochism to me, if the game is forcing random combustions and ignitions here and there, 'just because, uh, difficulty'" - iam with you. In my oppinion its not realy more difficulty just annoying.

[thorstein92]

Frequent fires aren't so bad as IT sounds. Just Keep eye on firestation range and service roads.

Medium reaction should be best on first gameplay. On hard setting it is easy to make negative pop growth.
But on easy reaction people don't care if they needs are fulfilled

[keeperofsword]

To best experience you should use:
* maximum education complexity;
* full fuel consumption;
* at least medium rate of fires.

Other options on your own.

[thorstein92]

Also. Play on test branch. It is stable enough for casual gamę, and have few new addons and QoL upgrades

[Fiend]

I think you have the right idea already, and the suggestions here are good.

The only settings I avoid are frequent fires, for the reason you already said; and hard citizen reactions, simply because even if I satisfy all their desires the population grows so slowly it takes decades to even build a small town. Also, the game isn't that good, so far, at showing you where people are leaving/dying, so it's very easy to suddenly lose a few people, which sets off a chain-reaction, (usually involving a kindergarten) and suddenly half your population has died.

The day/night cycle is actually as much a help as a hindrance. While it does make it difficult to build things at night, and increases your power consumption; it is by far the best way to tell if you have a power cut or brownout. That's not at all obvious in the day time.

[jon157uk]

Originally posted by Fiend:

I think you have the right idea already, and the suggestions here are good.

The only settings I avoid are frequent fires, for the reason you already said; and hard citizen reactions, simply because even if I satisfy all their desires the population grows so slowly it takes decades to even build a small town. Also, the game isn't that good, so far, at showing you where people are leaving/dying, so it's very easy to suddenly lose a few people, which sets off a chain-reaction, (usually involving a kindergarten) and suddenly half your population has died.

The day/night cycle is actually as much a help as a hindrance. While it does make it difficult to build things at night, and increases your power consumption; it is by far the best way to tell if you have a power cut or brownout. That's not at all obvious in the day time.

I agree with what you say about day/night cycle. I tried one save with it turned off and somehow the game just didn't feel right and you're correct about how useful it is for gauging your power supply, you can pick up on even the slightest flicker of lighting when your power station is being over worked. I've got in to the habit of just sitting and watching now during night time and some of the scenes you can create are incredibly realistic at times. As annoying as it can be it's a 'must have' for me now and a very good feature that's very well represented.

[Storpappa]

Play it on Cosmonaut settings

On the starting game menu, choose Hard
You want the least amount of starting funds
Fuel usage
Education demands

And most importantly, you have to set yourself to using the CY's for everything

Use the funds to set up the minimum resources in your first base camp
Then only spend them on the purchase of resources until you can supply them yourself

Will you crash to earth and die in your sealed capsule, or will you be the first human being in space?

Unfortunately, there is no game setting that forces you to not click the buy button. It's on your own honor and play style.

And its tedious
Monotinous
And a fire will spring up and destroy the huge building you just put up. Did I mention fires above? Yes, fires, frequently and often setting

Get a map off to a start and make it even a year and you will be playing a great game.


Most importantly, play it your own way and have fun.

[fjorkar]

My preferred setting is:
Money + citizen reaction + fire = means
Energy + education = complex
Day / night + pollution = activated
Beginning year = 1960
Farzeuge = blocked by year of construction
Map populated (you have many tasks to take care of the citizens from the start)
So far I've failed more often, but I'm getting better at the first two or three rehearsals, I've failed half a year, and after a year I'm done with the second year and it still works.
Still, I still like the game very much

[Storpappa]

Another important element is saved games

Auto save ON
You play the game, make a serious mistake and all your people leave - start over from scratch

There are no do-overs

Again, YMMV. But find yourself in the dark, because your power plant has no workers, because their bus is unable to get to the plant because a train is blocking their railroad crossing, because a signal is incorrect, and 10 hours of game-play is now lost, is a brutal teacher

[Gared]

Thank you all, for your very helpful advice

I followed it, and it's playing out nicely

[HSA]

I found that pollution is one of the main causes of workers leaving.
Setting the response setting to `easy` will not solve it.
Unsatisfied needs are also a cause for leaving.

[Viking*Warrior]

not having enough ambulances will wreck your population growth.

[thorstein92]

not having enough hospitals.
Vehicle entrance to hospital is a chokepoint. 2 hospitals with 2 ambulances each works better than 1 hospital with 7. (Also you can trim down staff to 5-10 people)