I remember on this game I used to play "Empire Earth". On some maps you get a island, and it helps alot to build defensive towers all around your island. From the start the AI builds the towers around his island, while your civilation is struggling with gathering enough recources to build 10 (about 1/5 of the island)

Anyway...I think the AI difficulty should be based on AI skill, not bonuses. They should say....Manage theyre cities better, not receive a extra 100k every turn . And someone mentioned above that the AI runs into hidden ambushes for no reason, same here. I can have a ambush on the other side of the map, and the AI sends a calvary unit over there for no reason.

Something should be done with the AI revolts, I had Rome (On RTW) down to 20% , and it never revolted. If that wouldve been mine, it wouldve revolted on 50.