Civ 1 vs Civ 2 difficulty?

I'm currently playing my first serious game of Test of Times, on King level, after a few trial games on lower on lower difficulties.
I chose to play on a Small map, since fewer cities means less micro-management. I'm doing well so far; in 1640 I own 25 cities, 3 of which have been conquered, while the other civs have 18 cities. My cities are on average about size 10, while few of the others' cities are larger than 5, and I'm in the lead in all positive Demographics categories.

So far my experience with ToT is that the AI plays much poorer than it did in Civ 1.
In Civ 1 had to struggle to be the first one on Alpha Centauri on King level, and the only time I managed to win on Emperor level was by doing the Chariot Blitzkrieg, so I'm not some super player, yet Civ 2/ToT so far feels too easy on King level.

Is King level supposed to be the same challenge as Civ 1 King level, considering that Civ 2/ToT has an additional Deity difficulty level?

Does map size influence the difficulty in your experience? Will the AI do better on a large map?

Now this is only my first serious game, and it's not over yet, but so far the AI seems too timid. They don't expand and settle new cities as quickly as they did in Civ 1, and so far I haven't even seen a single foreign ship. In Civ 1 it seemed to me the other civs were much better at taking advantage of every chance they got.

Maybe my current game is not the norm, or I'm imagining things, or is the AI really poorer in Civ 2 than in Civ 1?

I haven't played civ 1, so i can't compare the difficulty between the games. That said, the AI is not considered to be a challenge to experienced players. Using the power of caravans, players can beat win at levels beyond Deity reliably, though the AI eventually gets sufficient production bonuses to be a threat in the early to mid game.

King level is the most "fair" between the human and the AI. There is no happiness bonus/penalty for the human, and the AI doesn't have production bonuses or penalties.

i did read somewhere that between civ 1 and 2 they changed some aspects of the AI to make it play more like the human. For example, if I recall correctly, in Civ 1, the AI is given wonders randomly, wheras in Civ 2, the AI must build the wonder like a human.

I was an avid Civ1 player and did not have such an impression when I switched to Civ2. Nor have I heard anyone else get that impression.

That being said, it is now years since I played my last Civ1 game. You are right in your observation that Civ2 AI is slow to expand but I am not sure if it is any worse than Civ1 AI. The playing levels are supposed to be comparable to the Civ1 ones, so just like you said King is supposed to be at about the same level of difficulty in both versions. Deity was added for extra challenge to avid Civ1 players who were beating the game all the time. In my opinion, and not everybody agrees with this, they did not succeed in that. I believe Civ2 Emperor is tougher for the human player than Civ2 Deity.

One final observation: avid Civ2 players are better at beating the game than avid Civ1 players for two reasons. One is, as Prof. Garfield pointed out, some elements of chance have been toned down in Civ2. This has been most dramatic in building the wonders but battle injuries vs win-or-die is significant too. This allows the human player to better plan against the AI. The other reason is that Civ2 fans researched the hidden rules of the game to unprecedented amounts of detail and thus the body of knowledge available on how the game works is huge. This gives a significant advantage to the knowledgeable player.

Well, I just won on Emperor level playing pacifist democract out-researching and outproducing the other civs. I didn't use any "cheats", and very few caravans and landed the space ships in 1986.
In Civ 1 the only way I was able to win at Emperor level was through the Chariot bliztkrieg strategy. Playing "nice" I would eventually be swarmed.

This time I played on a medium map with very little hills and mountains, and much sea, and had time to build up on my own small island (room for 4 cities).
But the AI was much more aggressive in this game, but I'm not sure if it's due to difficulty level, or the paramaters of the game world.

Edit:

When I played Civ on the Amiga in the '90s I remember losing one game on Prince (I founded my capital on Hills because the manual said it had defense bonus. I learned from the mistake...). I only played a handful games of Civ, most of my them were on Warlord, and I remember Warlord was very easy.

When I started playing Civ2 about 2-3 years ago I began on Prince level directly and the AI was no challenge. But I had played a few Civ3 games around 2006-2007 so maybe that helped a little bit.

Depends if you want to wait. What stands out is the map. In Civ I, I believe it's set. I waited for the super continent to come. In my last Civ 2 game 80% of it is water or so. That's a once in a life time map.

Both of the games can be a challenge but Civ 2 has more flexibility imo. Civ 1 may be a little easier because of the palace abuse. You can sell your palace in every city you make as long as you start with the first.