I'm currently playing on Empire difficulty and keep running into the same problem; the game is generally over, one way or another around the Medieval era. I've either got so much territory and resources that I can just sail towards winning, or I'm locked in unable to expand due to lack of territory and resources. I've played plenty of games on different speeds, world settings and AI's, but can't seem to find the correct settings for a fair challenge. Whether it's multiple continents, Pangea or New World on or off, by the third age I know when I'm likely to win or lose.  An easy win is kinda boring, but so is an ultimately pointless struggle where even second or third are likely out of reach.

I've tried lots of play styles (and although the game is different to Endless Legend/Endless Space 1/2, many of the fundamentals are the same) with varying levels of success, but in the end, the game is usually over by the Early Modern at the latest.

I've convinced that World Settings have a lot of impact on the difficulty, but can't seem to find a decent combination.  What do people think the ''fairest' world settings are?

The core idea is to reduce your chances of contacting other computers. The current version of the player get too many benefits   from the computer and can cause too much damage to the computer players.

AI seems to perform much worse on pangae maps, and games on more continents (and less land mass percentage)  seem to be more interesting.