Another newbie question on province difficulty

[Jorollyn]

All of my unscouted provinces were considered to be medium difficulty except for a few on the far edge that were "very hard".
I scouted one of the medium ones, when the scouting was finished, all of the medium difficulty ones turned into hard ones.

What gives?

 

[Fayeanne]

Whenever a scout finishes, all other un-scouted provinces increase in difficulty slightly. This increase is not always enough to cross the threshhold and change the visible difficulty rating (e.g. from Easy to Medium or whatnot) but sometimes it is.

This is part of the game system: the intention is for each province to be slightly harder than the previous so that the difficulty increases gradually and you keep up with it by building up your city. I am guessing that the reason this increase is tied to scouting is to give you some amount of freedom in choosing which provinces to complete in what order.

The part that's confusing to me is that the change in difficulty happens when a scout finishes, not when you start scouting. I always wondered why, since you can't cancel scouting.

 

[Ashrem]

The part that's confusing to me is that the change in difficulty happens when a scout finishes, not when you start scouting. I always wondered why, since you can't cancel scouting.

They had to do it at some point, and most things that have a time completion in the game are checked when you enter the screen, so it's consistent with upgrades and constructions.

If you change it at start of construction, then other things could happen during the intervening time and you have to do it again by the time the scout is finished (say they finish an advanced scout tech). Probably simpler to just do it when it might be needed. When the player enters the world map and the scout is not busy so they can start a scout if they want to, calculate what it costs.

 

[LutherTheHairy]

What drops difficulty besides advanced scouting technology? I have heard squad size just makes enemy squads larger and leaves difficulty unchanged.

 

[Ashrem]

Squad size makes the current tournament enemies larger, not the provinces. Taking extra squad sizes should make the enemies easier in the provinces