head to head
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is variance, and it is a single point.

Optimization · Mind & Math
A colonial-era RTS adding home-city card shipments to classic Age economy play.

Optimization · Mind & Math
An economy-scaling war of build orders, scouting and multi-planet attention.
Age of Empires III leans Optimization (Mind & Math); Planetary Annihilation leans Optimization (Mind & Math).
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires III
Unit micro and raid defense
Planetary Annihilation
Multi-planet macro demands relentless APM and attention splitting
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires III
Human deck and timing reads in ranked
Planetary Annihilation
Scouting and out-guessing a human's expansion plan matters constantly
Age of Empires III leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Age of Empires III
Map spawns and shipment ordering unknowns
Planetary Annihilation
Procedural systems and fog hide early information
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires III
Home-city decks are a build-crafting layer
Planetary Annihilation
Economy scaling and build orders dominate - near-solvable openings
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.