Custom start, AI difficulty, what do the number mean ?

[kasnavada]

I just had a question, so if someone has a proof of how it works...

I find myself in front of the AI difficulty screen, which proposes me to choose the "Main difficulty" and the difficulty of the warden fleet and hunter fleet. The AI Main difficulty is straightforward.

Are the effectiveness of the hunter fleet and the warden fleet ABSOLUTE or RELATIVE to the AI main's difficulty ?

From the games I played, it seems that it's relative, ie, that if you choose Main diff 8 and hunter 8 the hunter fleet "feels" way stronger than if I chose main diff 4 and hunter 8. That said it could just be something else.

Whichever's fine, just, could someone just write in the tooltips which it is ?

[BadgerBadger]

The Warden Fleet difficulty does the following:

Increase starting Warden Fleet forces
Increase Warden Fleet max allowed strength
Allows the Warden Fleet to camp closer or further from your planets
When high enough, allows the Warden Fleet to get crazy strong units, and the aip point at which that unlocks
Makes the warden fleet a bit smarter

Keep in mind the actual Warden Fleet forces are determined by the main AI's difficulty level

The Hunter Fleet difficulty does the following

Increase starting Hunter Fleet forces
When high enough, the Hunter Fleet gets bonus ships throughout the game
When high enough, allows the Hunter Fleet to get crazy strong units, and the aip point at which that unlocks

Most hunter fleet forces are from Threat that gets bored of waiting for an opening, which is dependent on your playstyle

[kasnavada]

Ok... so what you seem to be saying is that hunter and warden fleet strength & numbers are relative to the main AI.

So the "standard" difficulty 8 hunter fleet actually is AI level 8 and hunter level 5.

That should definitely be in the tooltips. I can see a lot of people blindly putting all 3 levels at 8 and putting themselves in a world of hunter & warden pain without knowing it.