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Hmm. Maybe we should mod that? That sounds stupid if it's the case. However my ventures into Insane mobs have been few and far in between. Ridicilous ones seems to be the right match for me, but I would love to make high level monsters harder. The times I've tested Insane (granted a long time ago), they are a bit too hard and I end up doing nothing for too long, so not sure if there are low level mobs at all on Insane.

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That is interesting, I'm currently trying to win on Insane and I did think that some of the monsters "felt" easier than on Ridiculous. I didn't have a problem taking on Wildings and Bandits, for example, whereas almost any monsters were pretty tough at the start on Ridiculous. Doubling level will clearly have a dramatic effect on the tougher monsters, and it might make the Quest victory tougher if that's affected. But if the intention is that Insane should always be tougher than Ridiculous, presumably it would be easy enough to change so that it's +4 levels or *2, whichever is the greater.

One thing I have noticed on Insane which I hadn't noticed before is that monsters seem to regularly go up levels. I'm not sure if this doesn't happen at all on lower difficulty levels, or if they get a lot more experience on Insane so they go up levels faster.

It seems that the start on Ridiculous is harder - but after getting over the "bump" the fights will get relatively easier.

On Insane the start seems easier as you can find lower-lvl-monsters to fight - but later high lvl monsters are harder (after breaking point lvl 8). And the longer the game progresses, the more the remaining monsters level - which also adds to making end-game harder.

How much or quickly does monster gain levels? Has levling anything to do with spawning new monsters? Does monster increase in level or spawn new group, or do they do this in parallell?

There's quite a dramatic difference between a monster upgraded to level 2 (Insane) and upgraded to level 5 (Ridiculous). Wolves have 8 hitpoints on Insane, for example, I'm sure it was more than that on Ridiculous. In fact if it's +1 level per difficulty level between Challenging and Insane, then having only one extra level takes you right back to one level above Challenging.

On the other hand you really don't want to be fighting a dragon on Insane. Escaped Juggernauts are prettty scary, too.

I don't really know how the moster levelling mechanic works, as I say I only realised it was happening at all last weekend. Initially I noticed that there seemed to be a visual effect (like a spell had been cast or something) affecting lair monsters occasionally. Then I noticed that a stack of bears that I'd been keeping an eye on as potentially my next target had gone from 93 hitpoints to 102 hitpoints (or whatever the exact numbers were).

It's an assumption that they went up a level as I'd been looking at hitpoints, not level, but it's by far the most obvious reason I can think of that they would go up in hitpoints. It may have happened on difficulty below Insane, but if so I've not noticed. My hypothesis is that either it doesn't happen at all or it happens much more rarely below Insane, but someone who knows the underlying mechanisms could presumably clarify exactly what is going on.

Ok, thanks. I'm moving up to Ridiculous for AI and monsters on my next game - and it's good to know a bit about the change in mechanics/power.

I'm playing my first ridiculous/ridiculous game, and it's VERY tough to get underway.  Even bandits and mites can be lethal.  Jury's out on whether I'll be able to expand fast enough to survive.  

Take it slower

Try getting study up instead of a new city etc.

Really?  When everybody's got 3-4x my strength and Resoln's sending armies at me armed with 'tech well above my level, already?  

Just 3-4x? And just "tech well above your level"? I fight Champion's armored troops with lightning hammers and the first round of mage staffs. You can do that as well. You just can't waste any tech for stuff you do not need. Cut off the excess fat! ^^

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Yeah kinda strange that enchantmnet in the magic tree is the best warfare stuff by far for the early game.

I think I wrote something like that way back when drunk one time. Either way, keys to victory on Insane: "Mage cannons", "Blizzard Scrolls", "1 Elite army beats everything". So you try to get a Scroll scribe up asap (Conclave lvl 3), buy some Blizzard scrolls (they will rip Insane AI forces apart), level up some good mages, add dragons and other fun stuff as the game goes on and you can do anything you want.

Searching for "mage cannons" didn't turn up anything but I did find your insane thread. For research options do you go for enchantment before weaponmaking?

Yeah usually. Archers take to long to get, and you need some ranged as soon as possible. Enchantment gives both good melee hammers, staves, and is on the path to +2 magic damage trinkets. The hard part is getting mounts up at the same time as Glyph stones for the end-game units (the above mentioned elite army). Sometimes that doesn't work so you have to make due with some mages on foot to defend

This is the "backbone" of your army, with very little mana spent, you can compensate with a good mage hero, beastlord etc. but I prefer the above path because mages and beastlords all the time is boring

Oh, and that post is from back in vanilla FE. Insane was way harder back then, and I only beat it with paragon abuse. (invincible champion 100+ dodge paired with blind etc. for early game) If you had 3 entrances, there would be AI units streaming there constantly so if you cleaned out one way they would start hitting your cities in the two other places, I probably beat over 1000 armies in that game. (autoresolve ftw) That's why I mentioned curgen's volcano. I reduced the number of entrances to make it easier for my elite army to beat stuff and keep control over conquered territory.