I’ve been playing on normal and it’s plenty challenging (I’ve beaten the original on Classic Ironman). If you try to learn it blind and you don’t plan on playing quite a few games to learn you will get frustrated. The Air game is MUCH harder so you should read about that and a the other new mechanics before you play. don’t play “real” ironman) you won’t lose anything if it happens. I’ve had a few CTD’s but they are rare but as long as you have autosave on (i.e. I’ve been playing it a lot lately and it’s great.