I generally play with all the standard options (basic starting resources, 300 pop) on very hard. One AI opponent, random civs, and usually a random two or three player map. I can generally beat the very hard difficultly if the map favors defensive play (i.e. narrow channels, walls, etc.) or if the map has sparser resources because the AI doesn't know how to manage low resources well. On open maps with lots of resources the AI is very tough indeed and I pretty much always lose. I would prefer to keep the top difficulty as difficult as possible though. What I would like to see regarding difficulty is better battle tactics and strategy. The AI's resource gathering ability is already fantastic although it does struggle when there few resources. As far as levels, I would prefer to keep the five levels. I guess the main thing I would like to keep is a really hard level that doesn't cheat. I think the hardest level could allow cheating, but wouldn't want to have to play a cheating AI just to have access to better tactics. A death match mode where the AI mostly forgets about resource gathering would be fun and allow fine tuning the battle tactics / strategies.