Now that is an interesting question. inherent to that would be are there fewer bazaars and is the price for rares significantly higher?

Originally posted by Megiddo:

To be more clear, I'm wondering if there might be any hidden bonuses or penalties for starting a basic new game. Are things like artifacts any rarer on certain difficulties? Will a new game on ludicrous difficulty see any penalties (or possible bonuses), outside of combat, compared to a new game set on story mode?

Ludicrous difficulty makes a number of changes:

* Higher capacity cost for large squads -> you need more leadership for large squads
* Much higher artifact capacity cost -> Again, you'll need tons more leadership
* Higher shop prices
* Lower resources for mines etc -> For example, capturing an iron mine only gives 2 instead of 3 iron
* It is not possible to trade resources on the town screen. (You can still trade e.g. horses for gems or silver arena medals for bronze if you find a bazaar, though.)

Artifacts are not rarer though, nor are there fewer bazaars or anything. Those things should be unchanged.

In addition combat changes are not just enemies being tougher:

* Magic weakens much faster if you use it multiple times in a turn
* Healing is weaker -> Combined with the previous point this makes it much harder to rely on healers to keep your squads alive
* Temple services are more expensive
* Enemy squads use less predictable AI


The above are the default new game + options for Ludicrous difficulty, but from what I've seen they also apply to a normal new game on ludicrous difficulty. (It's hard for example to measure the magic decay thing, but all the quantifiable changes like artifact costs, resource gains, etc. are definitely the same, so I am assuming they all are.)

Thank you for the detailed reply. I didn't think to check if any of the settings were changed for New Game + variations.