45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
I suggest not to change handicap values, for the moment at least. It takes (it took me) ages to balance them and I think they're working very good right now (I have some small changes in next revision, maybe, I'm testing them). Much depends on your options anyway, so if you play without revolutions, no unit-per-tile limit, No fixed Boders and some other options, the game WILL BE very easy. Increasing handicap for AI isn't the way. If you really want some challenge, you just try other options you've probably never used. Try Flexible AI + Flexible Difficulty, for example. Try more religions when playing with revolution; for example I often avoid founding more than 1 religion even in those cases when I could, because using revolution that would cause some troubles. Game might be easy/hard not only because you're using some handicap, but also because of the options you've chosen. I know many people don't like it, but try Resource Depletion. What will you do if you run out of iron during a war? It's easy to trample your foe when you can build tons of units, but what happens when you can not build them anymore? It makes the game harder; you'll have to try some new diplomacy tricks, try bribing in some other ally instead of finishing your foe all by yourself; try to acquire iron from some other source (founding a distant colony, buying it from other civs, conquering a weaker neighbour). In the end if you play always with the same options you will probably always find the game easier. With some of these options I had to abandon the game because I was plainly losing. But sometimes I have the feeling that players don't like the idea of losing at all; they mostly want a hard game that in the end they can always win. Well, I prefer a game where sometimes AI is able to beat me and that's what I'm aiming to.
