| Feature |  Chieftan |
 Warlord |
 Prince |
 King |
 Emperor |
| Endgame year | 2100 AD | 2080 AD | 2060 AD | 2040 AD | 2020 AD |
| Starting Cash | 50  |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Content Citizens The number of people who will be created in a city who are born content. New citizens added to the city beyond this number will be born unhappy, requiring either a city improvement, wonder, luxuries or entertainers, or martial law to mollify them and prevent unrest. |
  |
|
|
|
|
| CP Rows of Food The number of rows in the computer player’s food storage box (i.e., how long it will take for a city to grow). The number of rows in the human player’s box is always 10. |
16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 |
| CP Resource Cost Multiplier All computer players have their costs to build units and city improvements multiplied by this amount. For example, a militia unit would cost the computer players 16, 14, 12, 10 and 8 at each increasing difficulty level. |
1.6 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| CP Lightbulb Increment Per Advance Each time an advance is discovered, the cost (in lightbulbs) of acquiring the next increases by this amount. |
+  |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
| Human Player Lightbulb Incremement Per Advance Each time an advance is discovered, the cost (in lightbulbs) of acquiring the next increases by this amount. |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
| Barbarian Unit Attack Strength Multiplier After all other factors are considered, the barbarians’ attack strengths are multiplied by this number. |
0.25 | 0.50 | 0.75 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Parley Coin Demands Multiplier In a parley with another leader, often they will demand payment for peace. It’s a complex formula explained HERE. Note that, at the Chieftan difficulty level, enemy leaders always offer peace (i.e. it’s the same effect as if the player permenantly has the Great Wall or United Nations wonder). |
0.25 | 0.50 | 0.75 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Civilization Score Multiplier The score is calculated the same on all difficulty levels. However, when it comes to high score ranking, the final score is converted to a percent in order to account for the difficulty. In this row, the value what each civilization point is worth (For example, 1000 points is worth 1000 x .02% = 20% on Chieftan). |
0.02% | 0.04% | 0.06% | 0.08% | 1.00% |
