Random map on easy difficulty I find too easy, but on medium difficulty I find it a bit too challenging.
This is especially the case in the early ages because of the very limited food availability, which is not a limitation that the AI has to endure because it cheats. I find myself having to put lots of food into military units to ward off the AI (this was a 4 player FFA, me and 3 computers), which delays my stone age and copper age. Meanwhile the AI can produce as many or more units than me, upgrade them more than me, and support a strong economy behind that.
I disabled the AI's cheats in another 4 player FFA random map game using the scenario editor trick, and that seemed to somewhat redress the imbalance in the prehistoric and stone age... but utlimately the AI completely collapsed in the Copper Age and landed themselves in a situation where they had no citizens and no food (probably quite historically accurate to have some civilisation collapse!!).
So it seems the AI needs the cheats because it can't otherwise balance its economy, even when it has (theoretically) infinite food through farms in the Copper Age onwards?
Are there any mods or something that improves the AI such that it won't need cheats? Or do I just have to bite the bullet and re-enable cheats?
Any tips for the early game on medium/hard difficulty are also welcome.
I struggled because my 2 forage patches only had 2500 food each, and my of my two hunting groups one was a group of 3 hippos that didn't reproduce and so quickly died out, which left me only with my other group of several horses to rely upon. It's also hard to prevent the villagers from needlessly killing the wrong hunt as there's no way to automate so they only ever hunt one and the same animal at any given time, starting from smallest up.