Game Settings

Collaboration Wanted

If you happen to know what the difficulty settings do and what the map presets feel like then feel free to add to this page. Ty!

Example of setting up a game as of Patch 1.0.3

When starting a fresh game there are several settings you can adjust. This page hopes to go over what each of them do and how they affect your game.

Difficulty

• Esquire (Easiest)
• Baron
• Viscount (Default)
• Earl (Normal)
• Marquess
• Prince
• Duke
• Grand Duke
• King
• Emperor (Hardest)

From a developer (Tandis) on the steam forums on the 21st Sep 2024:

The way AI works in Ara is a bit different from what is typically seen.

AI does get bonuses and penalties based on the difficulty level but also it plays differently based on these difficulty levels.

For example, at lower difficulty levels the AI tries to simulate what beginner players might do such as forget to place an Amenity or a Supply or not build up armies in quite the optimal way. Whereas at the higher levels, the AI is pretty good at min/maxing.

That said, we will be looking to do a lot of additional tuning of the AI once actual strategy masters get their hands on it and start doing terrible, terrible things to not just the AI but in multiplayer.

Maybe we should have a shirt that says "Because of me, they had to put out a patch!" ;)

Difficulty QOL Table

Difficulty	Player QoL	AI QoL
Esquire	80	30
Baron	70	35
Viscount	60	40
Earl	50	40
Marquess	50	45
Prince	50	50
Duke	45/40/45/40/45	60
Grand Duke	40	70
King	40/30/40/30/40	75
Emperor	30	80

Build Rate and Economy also differs for AI on difficulty.

Players will start off with different bonuses and resource access depending on difficulty.

Map Type

You can select a preset or configure the map generation yourself.

Preset Map Types
	In-game description	Detailed description
	Indus A balanced map with a realistic distribution of food, wood, and materials.
	Globulous A balanced map with two large continents and scattered nearby islands.
	Northlands A single continent full of trees, snow, and wild animals. Hunting will be more important than farming.
	Great Lakes A single continent with multiple inland seas. Temperate climate and resource nodes.
	The Torus A single continent which wraps around the globe. Or, a single landmass with two large inland oceans.
	Tropical A moderately sized continent surrounded by ocean and a few islands, with no colder regions. Food is more plentiful.
	Heatwave A continents map with much less rainfall. Food is reduced everywhere, and deserts are larger.

(Needs extended description beyond what the game tells us)

Generate New Map

These options are available when choosing to configure the parameters of map generation yourself (Which is the default).

• Map style
  • Supercontinent
  • Global Archipelago
  • World Spine
  • Four Continents
  • Fractal Coasts
  • Great Inland Ocean
  • Continental Isthmus
  • Twin Continents (Default)
• Map Size
  • Tiny
  • Small (Default)
  • Medium
  • Large
• Wrapped Map (Enabled by default) - If it wraps around into a cylinder or not.
• Seed
• Axial Tilt - How tilted the planet is. Earth generates tundra in the north/south and desert in the middle. Uranus does the opposite.
  • Earth - 23.5 degrees (Default)
  • Jupiter - 3.1 degrees
  • Mercury - 0.0 degrees
  • Uranus - 82.2 degrees
• Temperature
  • Scorching
  • Tropical
  • Mild (Default)
  • Boreal
  • Polar
• Humidity
  • Arid
  • Semi-arid
  • Humid (Default)
  • Wet
  • Monsoon
• Sea Level
  • Dry
  • Shallow
  • Average (Default)
  • High
  • Global Ocean

Nation Settings

Notice

As of version 1.0.3 there is a bug where the difficulty will not be set correctly if nations are added after changing the difficulty!

How many nations will spawn. The amount you can select depends on the map size selected earlier.

Number of Nations possible
	Min	Default	Max
Tiny	2	4	8
Small	2	8	10
Medium	2	12	18
Large	2	12	36

Advanced Settings

Notice

Changing the turn limit will NOT change the speed of the game. Only when the game will end!

• Turn Limit
  • Brief (100)
  • Short (300)
  • Medium (800)
  • Long (1500) (Default)
• Randomized Tech Draws
• Human Player Culling
• Vegetation
  • Low
  • Medium (Default)
  • High
• Wildlife
  • Low
  • Medium (Default)
  • High
• Ore
  • Low
  • Medium (Default)
  • High