Difficulty Scaling

five tiers compared

Dungeon Settlers has two independent difficulty axes, both picked at campaign start and both running the same five tiers (Easy, Normal, Hard, VeryHard, Downfall; the top tier is shown in-game as Devastation). Combat (Fight) difficulty scales the monsters - their health and damage - while Management difficulty scales the economy (crafting, construction, research, settler mood). They are chosen separately, so you can run an easy economy with brutal fights or vice-versa. Numbers below come straight from the game's tables (AffecterTable for combat scaling, GameSystemTable for the economy).

Official tier descriptions

Verbatim texts from the new-campaign screen (TEXTKEY_CreateCampaign_*). Combat and management difficulty are picked independently; the top tier is called Devastation in-game (Downfall in the data).

Tier	Combat difficulty	Management difficulty
Easy	Enemies are weak. You can easily win battles. Recommended for players who haven’t played many strategy games before.	Everything is generous and abundant.
Normal	It requires some strategy, but a little cleverness is enough to handle it. Recommended for players familiar with strategy games but new to this one.	Balanced resource flow that requires a moderate level of management strategy.
Hard	Enemies are tough, dungeons unforgiving. For experienced strategy players.	Resources are extremely scarce and goods are expensive. Your long-term planning and delicate management skills will be put to the test.
Very HardVeryHard	Enemies are formidable! For players familiar with the game seeking a merciless challenge. Forcibly disables free saves.	Management conditions are extremely harsh. Resources and time are very limited, requiring precise long-term planning and loss control.
DevastationDownfall	Do not play this difficulty, we warned you. Enemies are unreasonably strong. Forcibly disables free saves.	Management begins on the brink of collapse. Every choice has a cost, and even small waste can lead to downfall.

Combat (Fight) difficulty scales the monsters

Combat difficulty is applied to every monster as a hidden affecter (AFFECTER_MonsterDifficulty*). Hard is the baseline. Easy and Normal make monsters far weaker; VeryHard and Downfall make them tankier and hit harder - on Downfall a monster has double the health and double the attack of the same monster on Hard.

Monster stat	Easy	Normal	Hard	VeryHard	Downfall
Attack power (physical & magic)	x0.15 (-85%)	x0.4 (-60%)	x1.0	x1.5 (+50%)	x2 (+100%)
Max health	x1.0	x1.0	x1.0	x1.5 (+50%)	x2 (+100%)

Two more combat-difficulty levers pile on top of that flat scaling:

Environment effects

Every expedition rolls a set of environment effects from the region's pool. Higher combat difficulty rolls fewer helpful and more harmful ones. Harmful effects weaken your units (e.g. a stat −30%, reduced hit chance, nausea) or strengthen the monsters - so they directly cut into your damage and survivability. Counts per tier:

Combat difficulty	Positive effects	Negative effects
Easy	2	0
Normal	1	0
Hard	1	1
VeryHard	1	2
Downfall	1	3

Respawn interval & Magic Saturation

Monsters respawn faster on higher combat difficulty (every 1200 min on Easy, 900 on Normal, 600 from Hard up), so floors refill quicker. And when Magic Saturation is on - the default from Hard upward - monsters grow progressively stronger the longer a run lasts (AFFECTER_MagicSaturation), stacking on top of the flat tier scaling.

What scales	Easy	Normal	Hard	VeryHard	Downfall
Monster respawn interval	1200 min	900 min	600 min	600 min	600 min

Management difficulty the economy

Management difficulty never touches combat. It scales what you pay to craft, build and research (and how demanding your settlers are). The material and workload numbers listed everywhere else on this wiki are the Hard baseline (factor x1.0, the game's design default); the game multiplies them by the factor below and rounds, never dropping below 1. So an ingredient listed as 3 becomes 2 on Normal (x0.67), 1 on Easy (x0.34), 4 on VeryHard and 5 on Downfall (x1.66). Only material amounts (craft & build) and research workload scale - crafting/building labour, output counts, sell prices and unlock gates stay fixed.

What scales	Easy	Normal	Hard	VeryHard	Downfall
Crafting ingredient amounts	x0.34	x0.67	x1	x1.33	x1.66
Construction material amounts	x0.34	x0.67	x1	x1.33	x1.66
Research workload	x0.34	x0.67	x1	x1.33	x1.66

What difficulty does not change: loot - drop amounts, drop rates and item quality are identical on every difficulty. Combat difficulty only affects loot indirectly (faster respawns and more gathering-bonus environment effects on easier settings mean more total drops over time), and the one-time starting Support Wagon is bigger on easier management difficulty. Nothing multiplies the drop tables themselves.

Treatment expectation (mood) by unit level

The baseline mood a settler of each level expects from their treatment (housing/food standard). Higher management difficulty lowers the baseline - on Downfall a level-5 settler starts at -9 mood expectation vs -2 on Easy.

Difficulty	Lv1	Lv2	Lv3	Lv4	Lv5
Easy	+10	+7	+4	+1	-2
Normal	+8	+5	+2	-1	-4
Hard	+5	+2	-1	-4	-7
VeryHard	+4	+1	0	-3	-8
Downfall	+3	0	-1	-4	-9

Dungeon-stay mood penalty

Mood penalty applied the longer a unit stays on an expedition, in four escalating stages.

Difficulty	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4
Easy	-1	-4	-7	-10
Normal	-3	-6	-9	-12
Hard	-4	-10	-16	-22
VeryHard	-5	-11	-17	-23
Downfall	-6	-12	-18	-24

Campaign options

The other switches on the new-campaign screen, with their official descriptions.

Free Save Mode

On: You'll be able to save freely at the settlement.

Off: The game auto-saves to a single slot on exit.
Recommended for intended gameplay experience.

Magic Saturation

On: Abyss enemies in dungeons gain Magic Saturation, growing stronger as days pass.

Off: Abyss enemies in dungeons do not gain Magic Saturation.

Seed

A random string value for generating a settlement map.

Related: recipes (ingredient amounts shown at Normal) · mechanics guides · all game constants.