What's the best Difficulty for realistic gameplay?

[silk mortar]

Is it the "Very Hard" difficulty or can anyone help me with the custom one? I don't want to play Impossible as I'd like to keep the Contracts and Deals on.

[livid spoke]

I personally like Impossible with loans on, and self imposed restriction of no investing in the stock market since I feel it's too easy. You could just do impossible preset and then turn on Contracts and Deals if you'd prefer.

[spark crescent]

I agree

There's also an ultimate difficulty mod that I've been having some fun with recently

[gloomy patrol]

I'd also recommend starting your game on an empty plot with a maximum loan to start things up

it really adds some very realistic financial pressure

[runic gust]

very hard = impossible with contracts and deals afaik

impossible is... well the most realistic in a sense as you're some random guy in a shack