To a point that is kind of true, but I would argue that a story without conflict isn’t a story, it’s a setting. It’s the beginning of the movie. Here’s the Shire; hobbits live here. Without difficulty, no grand adventure. I get it though, I struggle with the idea that harder difficulties means a higher chance I lose pawns I’m attached to, or might see destroyed colonies that I’ve worked a long time to create. But at the same time that risk is where the best stories are generated; that raider clan killed our first pawn so now we’re gonna wipe them out with a group wearing their clan mate’s skin as armour led by the clan chief’s ex-wife who we convinced to join us instead.

To be clear, it’s perfectly fine to play it however you want; there is no right or wrong way. But in my experience the best stories are created on higher difficulties because Rimworld isn’t a story creator where you craft an entire narrative, it’s a story generator. You aren’t God; you’re as much a part of the world as the pawns are.