AI get second city on turn 8?

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Correction
"“Prince” is the middle level. On that level neither you nor your AI opponents get any particular bonuses. On levels below Prince you get bonuses in happiness and maintenance costs, and you get better results from Ancient Ruins."
taken from http://www.civpedia.com/civ5/game-difficulty

Not to mention that the first tree levels (Settler, Chieftain, Warlord) are all tooltiped as Tutorial, Beginner, Easy.

 

[Seek]

Difficulty is spread out in VEM more than vanilla - I think Settler is the only level without AI bonuses.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Did the OP actually confirm he was using VEM?

 

[Heerlo]

I asked Thal about the bonus settler to confirm, an he said it was removed in favor of other bonuses so I agree it must be culture ruins.

Whoa.That really is strange, then, if it wasn't that.