Did they make this game difficult yet?

[Squashbuckler]

Havent played in a long time due to it being extremely easy to paint the map.

[Devil_JCS]

Nope. The AI is as dumb as ever. Only way to make the game difficult really is to use scourge of the gods conquerors and maybe make Genghis Khan able to spawn at any time (Pretty sure there's a setting to make another spawn again eventually; idk, haven't messed around the settings for that in a while).

There should be mods for higher difficulty levels but I haven't looked into those myself. I can't help you out there.

[Delta-Kilo]

Nope; unless you try to set yourself up in the worst possible starting position (or are brand new to the game) you'll find it easy to survive once you've established yourself.