I've looked for it, and I found only outdated info, still talks about easy, normal etc. So I resort to asking the community Next to the AI difficulty dropdown there is a modifier with a lightning bolt icon. I assume it modifies the rate of energy gain, but it could also mean a handicap for the entire economy. No idea. What does it do?
It multiplies that Players economie (Mex and Power) by the value in the box, so default is 1x economy setting this value below 1 will reduce the ai's Eco and he will be less powerful, increasing it will make him have more resources and he will be stronger Note that this option is also available for you