House Rules against the AI

[Belac]

Actually I think the AI is pretty decent as games go. Much better than the CIV4 AI in that it is willing to attack other AI nations and can master a few basic battlefield strats (even if all that is is artillery+waves of chaff+flanking cavalry, that's something).

My house rules involve massively rich settings and hard research. The time of game when the AI is most challenging is early midgame, when as a player you want to be building forts+mages and racing up the research tree, but instead you have to keep armies around designed to beat waves of chaff. I just give up on reaching the endgame and play like there's nothing above level 6 magic.

[Saarud]

Well I only play SP since I can't be sure to keep up with the turns in a MP game even if I would prefer that. I only have a few houserules I follow and those has already been mentioned earlier in this thread.

My favorite way of playing SP is simply trying to break my own records in winning as fast as possible. While the AI won't challenge me, my earlier win records will. My favorite map are Dawn of Dominions (I think that's the name) where about 10 or so EA nations are preset on a very nice map. The starting locations are not balanced but very thematical placed which makes me more immersed into the game.