Emperor? Guess again!

I've won four games on Emperor (marathon) and in truth was getting a bit cocky. I started a game yesterday on standard speed, England, 8 civs, small continents.
Well, it didn't start that well: not a very big landmass, no neighbours, no CS (unnusual) and only two luxes - cotton and whales (actually 3 lots of whales in the area). Later I met Sulemein and Theodora who lived nearby. I'd just recently founded York when the Ottoman backstabber came calling - I had a warrior and 4 CBs and eventually fought him away from York, but he kept coming at me (occasionally offering me peace deals including York). Anyway after some time I got galleases, then SOTL, then beat him up...only by now Bismarck is running away. So off I go to take on Germany with my trusty SOTL - and he gets into the modern era v. quickly (there were a lot of RA's flying around). I captured and razed 2 cities...and that's when he came at me with his subs, sinking 2 of my 4 SOTL.
Have to say that the AI played it well (unlike yours truly). I know what went wrong (slow to explore, didn't get other cities up quickly enough, stuck in a war for too long etc.)
So I've started another game (same settings) to try and make less of a hash of it this time! If I don't win that I'm demoting myself.

I don't know why you'd demote yourself. Some emperor game's beginning situations are easier than others, but as long as you're learning and not getting utterly destroyed without having a clue, you should be doing fine.

You might have been able to regroup your SOTLs and beeline biology and electricity to get battleships, they are pretty awesome.
Anyway, good luck on your next game.

Battleships come later, but yeh, if you're at biology and electricity, it would be a no-brainer to pick up refrigeration on a water map.

I think if you know what you did wrong and you've won 4 games on Emperor, I don't see any reason why you would demote yourself. Some games are more difficult than others. I'm now about 85% on Emperor, but there are some games, like my Brazil game, that never take off at all.

The "Marathon" part was the delusion...

Triple time means triple opportunities to exploit the Tactical AI which, even though is much better than the original, is still at a disadvantage against any human that claims to have a neural net (3 or more neurons linked together).

Standard pace is much more representative of the difficulty level, IMO.