Bought the game on GOG during the winter sale along with the new dlc, was hooked in right from the beginning and played it for many hours, but due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay my enjoyment of it burned out a little. Overall, it's an excellent and unique sandbox tactical rpg. I was initially hesitant to buy it due to the quite harsh review that Roxor wrote after it released, but forum replies to that review convinced me that I should give it a try.
Started playing it on veteran ironman and after a few game overs I had beaten the orc invasion crisis on my second serious attempt (by this I mean getting a roster of at least 12 men). The first time when I got a full merc squad my adventures ended when I took a one skull contract ordering me to kill some alps. I didn't know anything about this type of a monster and needless to say my entire party got slaughtered. I expected the alps to attack directly like all the other monster types I previously encountered, so I positioned my men to brace for the charge of those strange looking creatures. There were 6 or 9 of them and after 2 turns, when I started taking damage, I figured out what the deal was with facing them in combat, but by that time it all was too late and none of my bros survived. I was pretty pissed off then.
The hardest encounter I faced at one point on my second serious attempt was clearing a 2 skull goblin hideout with a shaman and an overseer, I think two of my guys died there and three were left with permanent injuries. I was certain that this is going to be a wipe, but pressed on because it was too late to retreat and thanks to this I came out victorious, but with heavy losses. Now I have a fairly powerful party. Some of my guys are at level 10 or above. I don't have any legendaries due to mostly playing it safe, took only one 3 skull contract (against human enemies). After unexpectedly dying to alps (was ambushed by 4 of them on my current playthrough, but this time none died), I try to not take any dlc contracts right now, even if they have only one skull, heard that the monsters in them are brutal.
So my question is, should I continue to play on veteran or move to extreme, despite not having faced the hardest that veteran has to offer? Is extreme the one true difficulty, which everybody who knows the game plays on or is it impossibly hard, designed only for masochists?
