Encouragement to increase difficulty

I've been playing Civ for parts of 20+ years now, and I can't recall ever losing a game. The main reason is that I would usually play at Level 1 difficulty. My enjoyment from Civ came from exploring the new world in each game, finding goody huts, researching technologies, and building tons of workers to make my cities prosper. The other civs were mostly an afterthought, and at low difficulty were never competing for a victory.

The Steam achievements for Civ V encouraged me to increase my difficulty. I am up to Prince now (Level 4), and suddenly I find that the AI is starting to compete. In my last game, I found myself with lots of gold and many City-State allies, so I thought I'd go for a diplomatic victory. However, the Mongols captured the last overseas ally I needed for the victory, and at the same time the Inca started producing SS Boosters (I was still several techs away from that!). I ended up having to wage a naval battle with the Mongols (I had only one strong coastal city) to liberate the city, then buy a few Great Merchants to generate gold to buy back a few other allies I had lost on the final turn before the UN vote.

What I mean by all of this is that this game was fun and exciting in a new sort of way that I hadn't experienced in all my previous games of Civ, and it shows me that I can improve in many ways as well. I'm not sure how many others who visit this site play at lower difficulty levels (and have no trouble in achieving a victory), but I encourage you to try to step up to a higher level and see what new challenge you have.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I've had a similar experience.. AIs in earlier civilizations have been easier. Civilization 1's ai was easier and totally clearable in the emperor difficulty. Recent civilizations now have higher difficulty levels such as deity and immortal which aren't as easy to clear like the emperor difficulty.