So I decided to start over on all of my games and see how far I could go without using any spoilers. Deleted all my player slots and created new ones...one on each difficulty level.

Started VV3, chose player one, went back to the Options screen and chose Easy for the difficulty level and Normal for the speed. Clicked Done then clicked the Start Over button and let it go thru the intro. Starter population = 8 (5 adults, 2 kids, 1 baby); Tech Points = 99; Food = 0. Did a double take at the screen - no change. Let the game run a bit to see if it would update on it's own - no change. Went back to the menu screen and verified Difficulty was on Easy (it was).

Switched to player two, chose Normal difficulty, started game over. Starter population = 8 (same as above); Tech Points = 99; Food = 60. Looks about normal for that level.

Switched to player three, chose Hard difficulty, started games over. Starter population = 8 (same as above); Tech Points = 99; ...Food = 360. Went back to menu screen and verified this difficulty level was on Hard (it was).

Came online here and searched for any answers, found the post about update .04, downloaded and installed it. Went back into VV3 and started over players one (easy) and three (hard) - no change on the starter setting (Easy food = 0, Hard food = 360).

Completely uninstalled VV3, deleted player files in My Docs\LDW and made sure nothing was in Program Files. Reinstalled updated VV3 and repeated original steps for each game (changing the difficulty level, hitting the start over button, then playing the game). Food amount on Easy was still 0 and Hard was 360.

Is this the way it's supposed to be, is there a glitch with my game in particular, or did the default game settings for Easy and Hard get switched accidentally during programming?

Thanks,
LunyKimberly

The starting food amount was inadvertently reversed in the code. The game difficulties are correct, with the exception of the amount of food you start with.

Thanks for letting me know. Any idea if there's an update in the works to change the starting food amounts to what they should be or will this stay as a quirk of the game?

LunyKimberly

It will probably remain as it is, unfortunately, due to the difficulty of releasing an update this long after the game was released.

When you switch difficulty levels mid-game it changes how difficult the game is after the change correct?

So if I started a new game under Hard, then changed the difficulty level to Easy and did NOT hit the Start Over button, I should have the game to how it's intented to be? Right?

Well, not really. There are starting conditions that are not obvious to the player that will not be changed if you switch difficulty after starting a game. In your example, starting a game on Hard and switching to Easy will produce a game that's a hybrid, and it will be significantly more difficult than starting with a small food handicap at the beginning.

Thanks for the info, I'll just have to get really lucky harvesting honey and picking mushrooms (with a few game pauses to get "extra" mushrooms).

That's really best if you want an Easy game. For the Hard game, you get a bit of help with the extra food, but most players find that it's not enough to make the game be anything but... well... HARD! You might enjoy reading some of the posts about playing on the hard setting.