Difficulty

Templar Battleforce has a large number of difficulty levels both appealing to different skill levels as well as adding replay value and options for various community challenges (such as the No Bullets Challenge.) The difficulty is composed of whether Permadeath is enabled, as well as the difficulty's name. (Permadeath is mandatory for higher difficulty levels but can be optionally enabled at lower difficulties as well.)

Difficulty Factors
Difficulties come with a variety of different factors that get progressively harder with each higher difficulty setting:
 * Recruit Level: New Templar recruits will join your squad at a lower level than your Captain. How much lower of a level is variable according to difficulty.
 * Enemy Level: Enemy levels scale with the level of your Captain. However, exactly how much they lag behind or exceed your squad is variable according to difficulty.
 * Permadeath: Explained in its own section.
 * Enemy Spawns: The probability of enemies spawning outside of Xeno-controlled Tact Points is increased on higher difficulties. While the number of possible enemy spawns are the same across each difficulty, the percent chance of each spawn being successful (resulting in an enemy spawn on a tile) is higher on harder difficulties. Tact Point spawns follow different mechanics and are not impacted by this percent chance.
 * Heat Venting: Both the Heat vented per turn and Heat vented per unused MP are reduced on higher difficulty settings.
 * XP/RP Gain: Higher difficulties award more XP and RP allowing further customization than a single playthrough on an easier setting. (Because enemies scale with you, this isn't much of an advantage in and of itself but can hardly be termed a detriment either.)
 * Maximum Enemy Cap: Harder difficulties can have more enemies present on a map at a given time than easier difficulties. This cap is not shown to the player.
 * Closed Deploy Starting SP: The SP available at the beginning of closed deployment missions is increased for lower difficulties, going as high as +40% on Basic difficulty.

Permadeath

 * Off: All death is temporary; all dead templars at the end of each successful mission are revived but gain no exp for that deployment.
 * Dead on Victory: At the end of a successful mission, any dead templars will remain dead, or the mission may be restarted to hopefully avoid the casualties incurred.
 * Relaxed Permadeath: At the end of a successful mission, a failed mission (which will have to be restarted without the dead templars), or aborting a mission mid-way, any dead templars will remain dead.
 * Ironman Permadeath: At the end of a successful mission, any dead templars remain dead. At the end of a failed mission, the campaign ends in failure and must be restarted from the beginning. The option to abort a mission midway is disabled. This is the permadeath that may be optionally enabled for easier settings by checking the box on the new game screen.

Easy
Notes: This difficulty is great for beginners of strategy games. You aren't penalized for death and there are considerably fewer foes than on the other settings.
 * Recruit Level: 75% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 90% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Off by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 46% chance
 * Heat Venting: 18/turn, 4 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 100% (normal)

Normal

 * Recruit Level: 75% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 100% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Off by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 50% chance
 * Heat Venting: 16/turn, 4 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 100% (normal)

Notes: This is a good difficulty for most first-time players. You aren't penalized for death but there are a few additional foes than on Easy and they will be a slightly higher level.

Demanding

 * Recruit Level: 70% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 120% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Dead on Victory by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 55% chance
 * Heat Venting: 15/turn, 3 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 110%

Notes: This is a good difficulty for first-time players with a reasonable amount of experience with turn-based-strategy games. The enemy levels and numbers will be a serious threat to your templars, and you will have to be careful with your teams' lives or risk either their permanent death, or restarting the mission where they died. Heat levels will also begin to be a concern here, and are a major issue at higher levels.

Hard

 * Recruit Level: 70% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 130% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Dead on Victory by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 58% chance
 * Heat Venting: 14/turn, 3 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 115%

Notes: This may be a good difficulty for first-time players with significant strategy experience that are looking for a challenge.

Brutal

 * Recruit Level: 65% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 140% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Dead on Victory by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 64% chance
 * Heat Venting: 13/turn, 3 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 120%

Notes: Very similar to Hard in that expert tactical players might want to start here. However, primarily due to the increased number of foes, heat management may become a real issue for first-time players, no matter their general abilities.

Nightmare

 * Recruit Level: 65% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 150% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Relaxed Permadeath by default
 * Enemy Spawns: 70% chance
 * Heat Venting: 12/turn, 2 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 125%

Notes: The hardest difficulty that doesn't dictate a complete restart on defeat. It is still possible to get to a point where your experienced members of your squad all die except the Captain, leaving you with an insurmountable task of attempting the following mission with under-leveled recruits. Additionally the heat dissipation is a massive problem on this difficulty making finishing a mission before heat overwhelms your templars often a required strategy.

Ironman

 * Recruit Level: 60% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 160% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Ironman (enforced)
 * Enemy Spawns: 78% chance
 * Heat Venting: 10/turn, 2 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 130%

Notes: The penultimate challenge. This will likely require many attempts to succeed and respecializing your Templars after most missions to adjust to the coming mission based on knowledge from previous playthroughs. Not for the faint of heart.

Ironman Hell

 * Recruit Level: 55% of Captain
 * Enemy Level: 180% of Captain
 * Permadeath: Ironman (enforced)
 * Enemy Spawns: 88% chance
 * Heat Venting: 10/turn, 2 per unused MP
 * XP/RP: 139%

Notes: The final challenge. This mode is only unlocked via New Game+ and features incredibly dangerous foes in vast numbers with an extremely high penalty for allowing a single templar to die. Not for the sane of mind.