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[The Man with No Name]

My last game, in which I used Randy, seemed a lot easier than the game before, in which I used Cassandra. Both games, I used the Rough difficulty level. I'm not sure how much of it was to do with me just getting better at the game.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Songleaves]

Randy can be more difficult than Cassandra, but I pretty consistently have easier games with Cassandra.

[Bozobub]

Eventually, yes, Randy at any given level will be less difficult than Cassandra, AFAIK, although it may take a good long while.  Cassandra is freaking relentless.

[Canute]

At the beginning Randy can be difficulter because he can throw in some hard events.
At the end, Cassandra (special for big colonies) for constant tougher events.
If you want some constant challenges, add at the scenario some repeating raids.

[JohnLG]

In my experience, Randy is almost always easier than Cassandra.  Of course he is more random though, so the peak difficult situation is certainly higher with him.  Whenever I try to give Randy another chance, I inevitably find myself in a ridiculously long period between raids at some point though and switch to Cassandra or a modded storyteller. 

[Ukas]

Haven't played with Cassandra for ages, so I can't really say if anything's changed, but I'd say that Randy is generally easier. Choosing a storyteller has also other effects, than number of raids or other challenges, so it's not just a difficulty option, but a choice which meaningfulness to you depends on your play style and goals. For example I never build space ships, instead I wanna build a large city like colony.

With Randy on you can have really hard time for a while sometimes, and like JohnLG says long periods with nothing major happening. People argue Randy can be boring, but I have no hard time finding things to do when it's relatively peaceful. Its  possible to reach 50 or so colonists before Randy gets really nasty. Also, as I pretty much accept anyone who joins, and recruit the ones I like, there can be some challenge in management just because of variety in colonists temperaments etc.

Cassandra is (or was) like when everytime I reached a population cap, 16 colonists or so, she started to tighten the screw until someone died. This could go on and ultimately endanger the whole colony - if I played well and no colonists died, I started to think about sacrificing someone just to get a moment of rest. Got tired to continous pressure of about similar intensity. Also I needed people to have stuff I wanted done, can't really have a large city like colony with 16 colonists - so I chose Randy and have then stayed in that choice.

[Canute]

I inevitably find myself in a ridiculously long period between raids at some point though and switch to Cassandra or a modded storyteller.

This is why i mention before to add repeating raids to the scenario.

[Wanderer_joins]

The timing is key, and the cycles of Cassandra are what crank up the difficulty.

The first raid is an appetizer, then the second raid is always on time, not too soon, not too late, to apply maximum pressure. And repeat with the next cycle.

Randy can send epic shit, but it's rare, most of the time random means random, and raids are not coordinated.

The only downside with Cassandra is it's a little bit too predictible, you know when the cycle ends and have a (relative) safe period.

[Dashthechinchilla]

I also play rough. In my experience with randy vs Cassandra, randy can sometimes be easier. The reason is that while he does scale events, he doesn't steadily increase them. On the other hand, he also dosent take steps to help you, so back to back to back and simultaneous raids are just as likely as a whole quadrum of nothing happens.

[talesin]

Randy is... interesting. He sometimes gives you stable times to build and improve your base to the point where your defenses starting lagging behind. He also sometimes gives you event chains like the one I got earlier this week.

I had a mid-sized raid which I took care of fairly easily followed up within an hour (in-game time) by a poison ship that somehow got triggered as I was trying to build some IEDs around it. I managed to get everyone back to base successfully except for 2 hauling robots and one of my pet huskies, RIP.

I sent my doctors to take care of all my injured colonist and put the remaining able-bodied colonists in my defense line behind my turrets thinking that although there were a lot of centipedes I should be okay with a combination of my turrets, 4 mortars firing away and my remaining colonists.

As the first mechanoid reaches the entrance of my base a solar flare shuts down all of my automated defenses which required me to send all of my colonists who could still walk to my defensive line... most of them still bleeding. After a long protracted firefight and a few lucky mortar strikes I finally disabled all of the mechanoids and got everyone a meal (except the doctors who were up to their elbows in casualties) as my colonists cycled through my 8-bed hospital to get treatment and then recover in their own beds. I had 80% casualties with no fatalities (although a lot of close calls).

Just as my doctors finally finished patching everyone up I got hit with another sizable sapper raid that I had to fight off with a combination of mortar fire and a whole lot of very injured colonist going on 3 or 4 hours of sleep. 

Now I'm back to having a month or two of relative peace... that is what playing on Randy is like. LOL

[Andy_Dandy]

I've played alot of both Cassandra and Randy Extreme. Never had a game where Randy is more difficult all in all. Cassandra is the hardest storyteller by far.

[giltirn]

I find Randy to be much more enjoyable than Cassandra. With Cassy the game is quite literally out to kill you, whereas with Randy you can actually *win* (in a sense).

[Dashthechinchilla]

For me the difference is with Cass you are playing a game. It is a race against the clock because at some point she is going to curb check out your teeth if you dont boogie off the planet. With Randy it is more realistic. Things can be going good and, like just happened to me, 30 artic foxes appear and take you out on your second year. Or for two or three quadrums you don't see any enemies of any kind.

[TheMeInTeam]

I've played alot of both Cassandra and Randy Extreme. Never had a game where Randy is more difficult all in all. Cassandra is the hardest storyteller by far.

I've played both on extreme quite a bit and I agree with this.  It takes stars aligning for Randy to put up the same kind of threat.  Cas will lay into you, and if you take damage you're not getting much time to recover.