Difficulty Levels (Apocalypse)
X-Com Apocalypse has five difficulty levels. Novice - Easy - Medium - Hard - Superhuman
The easiest being Novice, increasing to Superhuman as the hardest.
Cityscapes
Each level has its own Cityscape design. The harder the game the larger the map, quantity of buildings, also being larger and prone of collapse, and more complicated the road layout.
Initial Funding
At the start of a new game, X-Com's initial starting money and end-of-week income:
| Difficulty Level | Starting Funding | Weekly Income |
|---|---|---|
| Novice | 140000 | 92000 |
| Easy | 130000 | 89000 |
| Medium | 120000 | 86000 |
| Hard | 110000 | 83000 |
| Superhuman | 100000 | 80000 |
Dynamic Funding
Funding is calculated at the end of each week, Monday at midnight.
The initial X-Com funding is added to with extra funds, Weekly Income, from the Government (The Senate) depending your Score in the previous week. Income can be decreased to zero if performance is always substandard.
The government may not have enough liquidity to continue paying for the good (or better) performance of X-Com's ability to deal with the Alien menace and may only give what is can spare, but no more than half of its total cash. Weekly Income may be stopped if the government has negative cash flows.
Income will be immediately cut off if the government becomes hostile to X-Com and if 100% infiltrated, funding will be permanently lost.
| End-Of-Week Score | New Income Change (%) |
|---|---|
| 12801 | 25.00 |
| 6401 | 20.00 |
| 3201 | 12.50 |
| 1601 | 8.33 |
| 801 | 6.25 |
| 401 | 5.00 |
| -1 | -6.66 |
| -401 | -10.00 |
| -801 | -20.00 |
| -1600 | -25.00 |
Source: Roger Wong's Game Guide
Unit Stats
Each difficulty level also modifys unit attributes. All enemy units, civilians and Security Station turrets have their stats increased on difficulties above Novice.
Organisation Relations
X-Com's interaction with other Organizations increasingly becomes more recalcitrant on higher difficulty levels. Positive attitudes towards X-Com is:
- +5% on Novice or Easy.
- Unchanged on Medium.
- -5% on Hard.
- -10% on Superhuman.
Searching a building for alien infestation (and no hostiles found) will decrease relations towards X-Com by roughly x2 from Novice to Superhuman. The amount of money demanded for an increase in relations is sharply increased roughly x8 from Novice to Superhuman.
Alien Technology Progression
The more difficult a game, the faster the Aliens will invent and acquire more advanced weaponry both for their crafts and lifeform equipment.