Always war discussion

I choose to start this thread in the general discussion forum and not the S&T forum because I'm not asking for tips specifically. Rather I'm interested in other players choice's on leader/civ. I've been watching Sulla's always war Lp as Babylon. Watched thru till part 11, and thought I'd give it a try. With all the years I have played the civ series this is my first few attempts at AW. My first game was on a small map, donut( like Sulla's), choose Toku but had to give up in the renaissance era. Mansa was a rival Ai that just started teching away, leaving me no chance. I made a second attempt on a duel size map simply to get the feel of an AW game. Two rival Ai- Isabella and Pacal. In the second game I went with Cyrus of Persia feeling that the immortal would allow me a quick victory which I did achieve at 200ad. Isabella was not problem but Pacal and his UU was a threat to my immortals. To finish off Pacal I worked toward construction to send cats/horse archers/axe men to close out the war. I plan to give another try on a small map but not sure what leader/civ to use. I'm thinking about using Charlemagne for his protective / imperialistic traits and UU. I will admit that typically I am a prince/ monarch player but went back down to noble for the always war challenge. So I welcome thoughts from other players. What leader / civ would you use or have used in an AW game and what reasons did you choose.

I think Darius with Immortals is a good choice. Hatty or Ramesses are probably slightly stronger though. If you play on a small map, so with only few opponents, you should try to choke the AIs, so they never get Metal.
There was a Deity AW challenge in HoF once. I remember that one ended with Elephants, so you don't have to tech that far, just produce overwhelming numbers.