Pavonis Interactive Forums

I am pretty sure I started my first game in Cinematic difficulty, but I am starting to doubt it.
Since my understanding is that the alien hate floor is now hugely low, I sashayed right out to Jupiter and spammed out a whole lot of mines. Dozens of them. And the aliens proceed to burn them all down (except for 5). They seem fairly happy to let me keep my MC at 135, but the alien threat meter has been pegged at 5 for a long time even though I have been laying low since that happened, and if I even look at a servant cross-eyed I get attacked again.

So, Is there a way to double check which difficulty I am on? Any other suggestions as to why the hate is so high?

The Ayys usually (not always) peg me back big time if I colonize Jupiter too soon regardless of MC or difficulty level.

Yes there is a way: Use an offensive action against an other factions country or councelor (detain, assasinate, crackdown, purge, etc.) and look at the defending modifiers: If you are on "Veteran" difficulty, there should be a modifier Veteran 1, if you are on "Brutal" difficulty, there should be a modifier Brutal 2.

Don't know what cinematic does, but on normal there isn't a modifier. So maybe on cinematic there might be an attacking modifier of Cinematic 1 or a defending modifier like cinematic -1.

And btw you should note that the Ayys really don't like it if you move onto their territory and settle Jupiter or beyond.