Difficulty change effects on saved game

[CharlesdeBatz]

I recently saved a playthrough of Zama on Deity mode, and reloaded it without noticing that I had switched the difficulty to Level 1. Does changing the set difficulty affect previously saved games?

[Athos1660]

I'd tend to think 'no' as the difficulty setting seems to affect things defined at the beginning of the battle once and for all, such as mainly the size of force available to the player or the quality of the troops at the lowest and highest difficulty settings, that are part of your saved game. But don't take my word for it.

[Paul59]

I recently saved a playthrough of Zama on Deity mode, and reloaded it without noticing that I had switched the difficulty to Level 1. Does changing the set difficulty affect previously saved games?

I would have agreed with Athos, that it would have no effect, but I have just tested it, and to my surprise my units were upgraded when I reloaded the game!

The way to check is to look at the quality of your units; at Deity level your Average units will be downgraded to Below Average. However in my test after I changed the difficulty level to Centurion my Average units were upgraded to Above Average!

Fortunately the solution is easy; just exit the saved game, change the difficulty back to Deity and then reload the saved game.

Note that the saved game is only affected if you change from Deity to Centurion, or vice versa. As the other difficulty levels do not alter the unit qualities at all, changing between them does not affect anything.

[CharlesdeBatz]

Ah, that would explain why I had no difficulty rolling up the Roman line and cavalry. I was somewhat surprised that it was that easy on (what I thought was) Deity, especially given that the historical battle was tilted in favor of the Romans from the start.