2.08 Immortal AIs lose a space race

For all those who believe the new patch spoils the game for all but total warmongers, here is the entire story of my first Immortal game with the new patch, reposted from a thread in the Warlords forum.




There are four problems to tackle on the highest levels when going for the space race victory.

1. Expanding enough to outpace the AI research/production bonus. Better city management or not, a human needs to be at least equal to the leading AI in terms of cities. So either go for a very aggressive settling policy, or plan an early war. The latter is actually superior - higher success rate, less effort, and the cities you get are somewhat developed.

2. Rebound out of the maintenance black hole after the expansion as soon as possible. Now that is something many experienced civ players struggle to grasp fully, probably because they spend too much time on city windows and too little on the F2 window. The cost of a "rush war/settling" and the resulting large empire is debilitating. Unit support, city maintenance, civics cost, with the evergrowing inflation on top of it.

3. Protect your empire.

4. Make your own luck. The AI is hard to predict. Most of the time they will beeline an early Rocketry only to dump Apollo in a coastal "irrigations and mills only" city, no factory, no aluminium, building this non-hurry project for literally centuries. But maybe, one of the AIs has got a fat cross with iron, coal and plains hills that even mills can't ruin completely production-wise and surprisingly it makes the right choice and builds the project there. So this AI is fast to get out of the Apollo bottleneck. Or maybe something else. Whatever the case, if there is a "lucky" AI winner it has to be dealt with.


My stand: I chop, whip, and use a mix of CE and SE. I heavily specialize cities.

So, for this particular Immortal game, I chose Rome/Augustus. Rome has Praetorians, the best rush unit for its strength, durability, and low overall army support. Augustus is Organized and Creative. Organized is one of the best traits out there, halving civics cost from day one, giving half-priced courthouses, and now also half-priced factories that make the late game production boom humans can engineer even more powerful. Creative is amazing for optimized city placement, more early chopping, fending off the barbarians, bottlenecking the AI, pushing AI borders for resources, saving time from building obelisks, avoiding a possible non-religion culture gap from Calendar to Drama, converting conquered cities, etc.

Fractal map. Starting loc was nice, sea with some food, lake, some river, marble. Bronze revealed a resource in my fat cross, bad news because it ruled out iron. Met Ragnar to the east and Washington to the northwest. Also, a scout from Mansa, somewhere beyond Washington. First two millenia passed by while I built mostly workers/boats, and a settler.

Meanwhile the brand new 2.08 AI startled me when Ragnar built a city on a hill right next to my cultural border. King of the hill, eh? Also, unknowns AI(s) found early religions.

I decided to research the Oracle techs instead of IW (they are about the same cost), and oracle IW. Found my second city (Antium) in 1840 BC to the north, next to a barbarian state and the Americans. Oracle was completed in 1800 BC, IW revealed a resource north, and a resource east. I saw an American settler going for the north one, so I quickly settled my third city (Cumae) next to the other.

With that, the borders were set. Ragnar had 7 cities with a large shared border. Washington had a growing number (7+) of cities, but we barely bordered on a somewhat bottlenecked part of the mainland. And there was the barbarian state on a peninsula west of my territory.

I opted for another marble work of wonder in Rome - the Temple of Artemis, while Antium and Cumae built Barracks. Even if the build failed, the gold conversion with marble present was a decent deal. Success was even better. The Temple gives a free priest and +100% trade routes. Together with the Oracle, chances for a religious leader to bulb Theology (followed by another for Temple of Nativity) were high. Considering the (planned) wonders, the food resources and the health boni of fresh water and Harbor, Rome was designated for GP farm.

There is a common misconception that SE goes well with Mercantilism. Far from that, city trade depends on a) coastal b) population. Since SE work food/irrigation for more population, instead of cottages, SE coastal cities make amazing trade hubs. Calculate in Bureaucracy and an Academy - and Mansa as a guaranteed nonpsycho, nonmercantilism trade partner - and you will begin to grasp why the +100% trade was perfect for Rome.

So, I did finish the Temple. Ragnar was designated as the victim and his territory was mapped by a scout. He had no bronze, but one iron in a small city south of his capital.

Mansa founded Confucianism some time before 1000 BC. However, unknown AIs continued to snatch all the world wonders but my two.

Rome produced a great prophet in 850 BC (the first great person) and Christianity was found in Cumae in 700 BC. The extra missionary went in Rome, Theocracy was adopted and CR 2 Praetorians were rushed out of the barracks, along with a medic.

Then the new weird AI happened again: the barbarians left their city with their CD 2 Archer for absolutely no reason just as two pathetic Chariots of Ragnar surpassed my slower Praetorian from Antium. The remaining archer lost and Ragnar snatched the barbarian city.

So, war. I sent my main stack thru Viking territory to a non-culture tile nearby Ragnar's iron mine city. The objective was to take this city, rest, and take the Viking capital. The group from Antium was to take the barbarian city, while one properly promoted Praetorian stayed to check Birka - king of the hill city - for possible pillagers. It wasn't reasonable to attack Birka right away because of a city wall/hill/fortified Axeman. As war progressed, newly produced Praetorians were to target other cities.

War with Ragnar started in 475 BC and in 9 turns the Vikings lost 6 cities. Peace was restored in 225 BC and the crowds of Rome cheered the triumph of a Great General. He then joined a unit to unlock XP levels 4 and 6.

Code of Laws was soon to follow and courthouses were rushed in the empire. Temple of Nativity was found and missionaries built to spread the word of Christ. The Vikings joined the Church first, Americans followed despite Mali influence and their own Taoist teaching which appeared with the nearing of the new age. Mansa's reply was the construction of the Great Library.

Beyond America, I was surprised to find an entire secret empire - and a very powerful too - the Zulus. Apparently, they weren't loved by Washington. Some gifts to strong Shaka, open borders, and Christendom spread in Zulu land. It took some effort due to the strength of the Confucian heresy, but eventually the Zulu joined the Church in 700 AD. Mansa's retort: Liberalism.

I wasn't doing bad either. A small colonization spree on tiny islands was joined to found Neaplis next to a Stone resource. The Colossus was built in Antium and the University of Sankore was built in Cumae. The globe was circumvented by Roman sailors, and more so by savvy Roman map traders. The last two AIs were contacted, on a smaller continent northeast of me: Izzy (6 cities, proud founder of three religions, and Saladin, the more powerful, ~10 cities, Hinduist. Saladin was slightly behind tech-wise but soon caught up and became a very serious contender. Some bribing for good relations, and Rome had trade routes of 15-20 gp each, +50% for Bureaucracy, doubled for buildings and eventually Academy, although luck wasn't with me when it came to Scientific Leaders. The extra Prophets and Great Merchants were settled in Cumae for a dual benefit - synergy with the Temple of Nativity in regard to financial buildings and some extra food for the city, which was already turning into a major industry center. The city specialization went as follows:

Rome: GP farm/trade hub (National Epic, Globe Theather)
Cumae: wonder builder/extra gold (Iron Works, Wall Street)
Haithabu: industry and general military (Heroic Epic, Forbidden Palace)
Chehalis: cottages/trade hub (Oxford University)
Antium: high quality military (West Point, reserved for Red Cross – didn’t build it tho; Military Academy from Facism GG)

4 more cities were specialized in cottages and Neaplis was built for production, to catch up with the rest and to be able to defend itself out there.


Meanwhile, the Americans and the Zulus aggressively settled along their border and tensions escalated. Eventually, Shaka invaded. My Christian missions closely monitored the military activity. Washington kept a large number of troops in his capital, while his border cities were slowly overrun by Zulu Knights and Trebuchets. Then the Zulu invaded central America and thoroughly pillaged it. The Americans were crippled, Zulu forward pillagers nearly reached the Roman-American border. Then the first major American city fell – New York – and was razed. Enough razing of Christian cities, I said, and supplied the Americans with Horses. Soon American Cavalries pushed back the tide. Also, Washington paid Mansa to backstab Shaka, and Mansa did, his few but technologically superior troops razed a Zulu city, and the Zulus responded with the razing of a culturally cut Malinese city in Zulu territory.

Aftermath of the war: There were 4 strong AIs, with three of them being technologically competitive – Mansa, Washington, Saladin. Shaka was the strongest in numbers, but obviously his city and military maintenance (and $ for upgrades) was too much even for an Immortal level AI. The end of the war heralded the end of America as a contender for the space race. Moreover, relations between Shaka and Mansa/Washigton were forever stranded.

The game went on, I mopped the last Viking cities on the mainland, Ragnar became a vassal of Shaka and I was dragged into a war with the Zulu. Since Shaka didn’t have any chance to pass thru American territory, and since my Age of Sail navy was powerful, this turned to be the most uneventful war ever. An island Viking city was captured next, and the last Viking city renounced the vassalage treaty and accepted Rome as master.

I generally beelined to Assembly Line for factories, easily supporting 100% research rate with the earnings of 200+ gold per turn from Cumae alone, Mansa quickly beelined Rocketry but the construction of his Apollo, predictably, was slow and finished in 1705. The golden age of Rome ended with Mercantilism becoming rampant, myself and Mansa being the only free traders. I managed to bribe Washington to go free market, but my GNP wasn’t as domineering yet as I wanted it, so I decided not to take chances, and paid off Shaka to attack Mansa. Soon enough, scores of Zulu cannons and cavalries ravaged Malinese countryside. The war was so debilitating that Mansa’s first SS Casing was finished in 1822, 30 turns after the launch of his space program. He never launched another, as Zulu conquered/razed 3 of his major cities. Defeated, Mansa sued peace and accepted Saladin as master.

Last of the three AI contenders, Saladin has become truly powerful. His powergraph was way above mine. However, he didn’t really have any way to attack me, as my navy was ~equal to his, and of course, superiorly promoted and commanded. The only land route leading into my territory was defended by a well garrisoned hill city. Yet, I asked Shaka to attack Mansa and thus drag master Saladin into the war. Shaka refused for fear of “their military”. I gave him Artillery, and next turn all of his visible 35 cannons, and some invisible too, were promoted to Artillery. Needless to say, he was feeling powerful now and gladly invaded, removing any possible nuisance from Saladin. So I didn’t waste production on military, built wonders like the Statue of Liberty and the Pentagon, built my factories and powerplants, then switched to building research. With the Warlords new rules on building research, it was effective in establishing my significant lead in technologies. Cumae completed Appollo in a few turns for a 1800 finish, all my SS Casings were completed before Mansa’s first. Saladin, Washington, Isabella launched space programs, but didn’t go far. Washington has regained much of his strength and attack Shaka, trampling his cities with tanks and SEALs.

I beelined Fusion, popped a GE in Cumae and together with a random GE pop from Rome the three engineers hurried the Space Elevator in the turn Robotics was research. Then I planned the building of the remaining major components in the best possible way, and won the space race in 1910. As of that year, no AI had completed anything beside SS Casings or Thrusters. The AIs lacked half a dozen key space race technologies. Depending on their research pace, and moreso on their project cities’ allocation, it would take any of them another ~40 turns to finish the space race.

Nice read. I copied it to my strategy articles folder for future reference. So much seems to depend on inter AI warring at the high levels, and they seem to do plenty of it. Nice tips about the F2 screen and trade routes. I also like to use 'build gold' if I have to help early-mid expansion.

Excellent and insightful report, thanks!

Excellent job playing your rivals off of each other. That's what I love about Shaka. So willing to go to be bribed into starting a war.

Good game Your diplomatic manuevers were masterful. But I feel that you were quite lucky to have such neighbours and such a good diplomatic landscape. Any other games where you managed to win rather peacefully on Immortal?

There is a common misconception that SE goes well with Mercantilism. Far from that, city trade depends on a) coastal b) population. Since SE work food/irrigation for more population, instead of cottages, SE coastal cities make amazing trade hubs. Calculate in Bureaucracy and an Academy - and Mansa as a guaranteed nonpsycho, nonmercantilism trade partner - and you will begin to grasp why the +100% trade was perfect for Rome.

Click to expand...

This is not a misconception. The fact that your cities are large means that AI will favor your cities for trade routes thus benefiting from you as much as you might benefit from him,in fact more.
Therefore, a choice for Mercantilism is as strategic in it's nature as it is a natural choice for your FE/SE, providing one free extra specialist in your empire (which if is real FE/SE doesn't primarily use science slider for research) , and which doesn't recquire food.
So while your running science slider low, your opponents use their slider to boost commerce they get from your large coastal cities.
A choice wether to use merc. or not is not that simple.

@aelf

As peaceful as this one - many. War early and once you secure a big empire, you can win any way you want (I always play normal speed; usually standard size, temperate, med sea, standard rules Immortal).

More peaceful - a few. My only Warlords 2.0 game was a Carthage space race win. Only conquered 3 Zulu cities halfway thru the game, but expanded on a barbaric island-continent, culture-bombed rival colonizators there and got the largest empire. My first vanilla win on Immortal (with Qin) was a peaceful space race, I bottlenecked a huge piece of land and only warred defensively in late game vs neighbor Toku, who invaded with lots of Artillery. And the only time I actually bothered to micromanage a cultural victory on Immortal, I played with Hatsheput, had only 6 cities, and was forced in defensive wars vs Bismarck (ancient age, war chariots sufficed), Ceaser (medieval, he totally outnumbered me yet I won the war with some help from Bismarck), and Catherine (a late game naval invasion).

I've also spaceraced a couple vanilla games with limited gunpowder-age warmongering for empire building, playing Russians/French.

Bottomline: Augustus "war early/get the empire running early/win" strategy is very effective on 2.08 Immortal. The key points are 1. Praets for expansion 2. Organized/Creative for optimizing the empire. CE/SE, wonders, religions, tech beelines, spacerace/domination, etc are up to the players' preferences, any of them will work.

The save file for the game. I traded Fission for Mass Media and Medicine in the last turn for score. None of the AIs had it, so it's 6 space race techs they were lacking.

stand_fractal_7_immortal_-_space_win

acidsatyr said:

This is not a misconception. The fact that your cities are large means that AI will favor your cities for trade routes thus benefiting from you as much as you might benefit from him,in fact more.
Therefore, a choice for Mercantilism is as strategic in it's nature as it is a natural choice for your FE/SE, providing one free extra specialist in your empire (which if is real FE/SE doesn't primarily use science slider for research) , and which doesn't recquire food.
So while your running science slider low, your opponents use their slider to boost commerce they get from your large coastal cities.
A choice wether to use merc. or not is not that simple.

Click to expand...

Untrue. The 2.08 Immortal AIs' cities will reach low 20s in the first millenium AD or so. Your cities will be "large" only compared to CE human cities of the respective time period. Moreover, when you have Artemis, you get your trade benefit double, and no AI can beat such a trade ratio. Also, the AI is very instrumental in failing to specialize/maximize its strong points and in wasting its commerce on all kinds of useless purposes as upgrades or culture. Trade is available on the spot, available in a time the AIs cottages built by free workers pre 2000 BC turn into towns. Its a minor commerce plus for the AI and they can't even utilize it properly. It's a massive boon for human players. I'd take 200 extra beakers/turn in my capital alone over just one more specialist per city any time.

But let's suppose a full SE is on, slider mostly taxes. Academy/monasteries won't help, yet if you have Mercantilism you can afford banks in trade hubs. You'll get so much gold that soon your slider will mostly research.

Trade comes on top of whatever base economy you are running, SE, CE, hybrid, hammer, whatever. With sufficient trade partners, each point of population in an Artemis/Harbor coastal city nearly equals +1 for each trade route. Base route, Currency, Castle, that's 3 commerce for each population point, 4.5 in a Bureaucratic capital. Great Lighthouse that, and you get 5 commerce per population point from trade, as much as financial town without FS/PP; and that's 7.5 in the capital. All those population points can still work mines, cottages or be specialists. But it's too fragile, building both Artemis and the Great Lighthouse is too uncertain past Emperor, neighboring AIs and diplomacy are too important, Mercantilism often becomes widespread. That being said, when you have the opportunity to benefit from a golden age of trade - take it.

hah but when are you going to get that extra 200 beakers per city with trade routes? When are you going to get ToA every time on immortal/deity?
How often you build castle? When are you going to build G. Lighthouse? When are you running buearocracy in your capital IF your running Fe/Se ( i know i 90% dont!).
Your speaking like you are positive that all these things are available to you every game.. In fact, more than half of the time you are far better off with running mercantilism, but not always, i'm not saying that. I am saying that FE/SE goes very well with Mercantilism, and that the choice wether to run it is not that simple. Thus there is no misconception your speaking of.

I think you should only run mercantilism if all the civs around you do. When Free market is available and you have three trade routes/ city where the biggest cities bring in more than 20 g/pt easily from trade it would be a folly to stay with mercantilism. At least if you tend to have open borders with other civs and astronomy asap as i do and you don't have > 20 cities.

Consider this. Mercantilism is run if your civ is bigger than most of the other civs. On the other hand, you run Free Market when your civ is smaller.
When you are bigger, or your research is stronger than taht of your opponents, they benefit more from you than you from them.
So while others are trying to run free market, you cut them of with merc !

I don't think i'm totally with you here. If you have conquered half of the world by the time this decision comes up you're absolutely right, For instance 40 free specialists in 10 good and 30 crappy cities is absolutely great, there is no way all this cities get good trade routes and with constitution this is just 6 * 40 = 240 free science (if running caste system or have a library in the city), totally great. If on the other hand you have some 15 good cities the income of trade routes is huge. You get full benefit. Realistically for instance 4 other good civs will also be profiting from your open borders so they're getting 1/4 off your profit. I'ts the same as with tech trade, you profit 100% (somewhat less because ai bonuses), Ai profit from 25% to more according to how willingly the Ai trades the tech you traded to others this is seldom 100% though.

Your post set me thinking though, I have open borders with everyone always without thinking much of it. For the space race games i mostly have only one really dangerous opponent, maybe i should close borders with this particular opponent hurting me and him/her equally and also get trade embargoes against this person.

Btw if i'm stronger or equal on research by the time we get to techs like steel the game is won anyway i only have to watch that i have some units or have diplomacy really good with neighbours. Space race games are interesting if you're 10-15 techs behind, by the time you're researching nationalism just after education and you're informed that someone has switched to state property.

acidsatyr said:

hah but when are you going to get that extra 200 beakers per city with trade routes? When are you going to get ToA every time on immortal/deity?
How often you build castle? When are you going to build G. Lighthouse? When are you running buearocracy in your capital IF your running Fe/Se ( i know i 90% dont!).
Your speaking like you are positive that all these things are available to you every game.. In fact, more than half of the time you are far better off with running mercantilism, but not always, i'm not saying that. I am saying that FE/SE goes very well with Mercantilism, and that the choice wether to run it is not that simple. Thus there is no misconception your speaking of.

Click to expand...

Heh, I am positive there are situations when Mercantilism is better for a SE.

The chances. This strategy requires a Praet rush. All things being equal, 6 AIs, there is 30.6% chance that the AI conquered will have either ToA or GL, and 2.7% for both. On deity, that's it. On Immortal and below there is a growing chance to build one or both of them yourself. As you can see in my game, I built the Oracle, founded two cities and secured Iron, easily defeated Ragnar, found Christianity and while doing all that I had the time to complete ToA. So the chance to have a trade wonder one way or another is high. But then, it's only useful when there are major coastal cities and reliable trade partners, so the % goes down. On the other hand, numerous coastal cities and great trading opportunities might waver the need to have one of the wonders to beat Merc's free specialist benefit. Bureaucracy can be used in SE any time no war is about and obtaining Engineering and whipping a Caste is easy. Certainly, it is less than half the games on Immortal, but it's still common enough to be recognized as an important opportunity to exploit when possible.

But can it be recognized? Most of the people here don't play Immortal/Deity only and the ramifications of "trade vs. mercantilism in hybrid/full SE" aren't that obvious to them as they are to you or me. They read all the posts stating "SE goes with Merc, and CE goes with FT" and make the wrong conclusions. That's just a similarity-based logic flaw. The truth is SE trumps CE in both Merc and trade.

I'm experienced player in both TBS and RTS. I've noticed that the best players are always able to achieve progress in more than one aspect of the game simultaniously. In RTS, that may come as expertly leading an attack while micromanaging your bases development. In TBS, it's more about synergy effects and time windows of opportunity. See how this plays out in my Roman game after the first major objective - securing iron - was accomplished:

I chose to risk building ToA at the cost of ~4 Praets because I felt that the time windows for a) building this wonder and b) before Viking longbows come would stay open long enough.

Had I failed, I'd get 90 gold per Praet missed, which would have enabled me to research on 100%, or promote whatever warriors there were had I felt war with Ragnar must come ASAP. That's a contingency synergy effect that turns a defeat in one area into successes in other areas.

And success in building a "trade" wonder did allow me synergies in all the following spheres:
science: massive boost from my trade hubs
diplomacy: due to ToA's +5 GPP I found Christianity first, which had immense diplomatic positives
GP: Christianity for pacifism, a free priest and wonder GP points in my GP farm
military: Theocracy CR 2 Praets. Need I say more?
gold: trade hubs and Christianity holy city
teching: more science, more lightbulbing, better diplomatic relations

My overall strategy in no way forsaw completing ToA. As a high level strategy, it did not require building any wonder. In this particular game, there was a ToA time window and ToA synergy, so I built it. I did so, because I recognized all the benefits, and I did recognize them because I knew the value of trade in hybrid/specialist economies.

I tend to play my games more or less similar to yours...

I go to war when needed (to expand), but I try to stick in general to only one expansion war when plying standard sized maps. Sometimes you have to adapt to changing situation and may find yourself doing two expansion wars but hey, be flexible.

Rest of the game I try to stay peaceful (via diplo) and build up my empire with focus on city growth (and the trade that comes along with it...). A defensive war here and there may be neccessary (because I got attacked) but mainly peaceful...

Congrats for you space race victory on warlords 2.08 (I learned just recently that it´s much harder then vanilla)

Ah, and by the way:
Mercant... is bah (as always, in my opinion). I only use it when all the others are using it and nobody will skip to free markets for some tech(s)

Mercantilisam is.... bah?
You are quick to bash it my friend i don't think you realize how powerful it is.

Mercantilism gives most benefit to small cities (which have low trade yield and few citizens to be turned specialists), while Free Market gives most benefit to large cities (which have high trade yield and citizens to spare on top). Each has its place, each can be useful. Which is the beauty in cIV - neither one is superior in all cases

Unconquered Sun, I understand the basis of your strategy. It's not actually very different from the way I play my games. If I start with a close neighbour or two. Now, if the nearest neighbour is quite far away, then what? Do you settle many cities and cover all that space? How do you get out of the economic slowdown that would surely follow? If you settle 3-4 cities and wait till CoL/catapults before going to war with your neighbour (who would by now have expanded towards you), how do you reduce him and increase the size of your empire enough without having to perpetually fight for the next milennia or two?

You were talking about windows of opportunity. In 2.08, it seems there's this small window of opportunity when axes/swords can quite easily conquer the archer-defended cities of the AI. But if you wait till catapults/CoL, chances are the AIs would already have longbows, slowing down the speed of your campaigns until you get trebuchets (by which time it's too late in the game for an 'early war').

Anyway, I believe Mercantilism is better for medium-sized cities, where there's actually enough infrastructure for you to choose what kind of specialist you want as the freebie. Small cities tend to end up with citizen specialists or priests. The latter is ok, but kind of wishy-washy. If you have a large empire with mostly non-coastal medium-sized cities, I think Mercantilism tends to be better than FM.

Indeed, aelf, you strategy is similar because it is the natural way to go for space races and a good way to go for late game diplomatic or domination wins.

What matters is getting the cities to beat AI teching and industry in late game. If there's noone around, just settle.

The resulting economic slowdown has three components:
1) increased city cost from distance and number of cities. A bad one because it grows when your cities grow in size, offsetting your development.
2) increased civics cost. Based on your cities' size as well. Bad.
3) Unit costs for defenders and workers. It is a fixed number per city. You deal with it by developing your cities.

Organized is the key to curb economic slowdown. It cuts civic cost in half by virtue. Research CoL and whip the courthouses and the city cost is halved too. In my Roman game, there was no economic slowdown, my GNP was ranked first post 1 AD and there was no technology rift compared to the AIs either, except for Mansa.

The only ways to play down courthouses/FP are Versailles and State Property, the former being way too situational and the latter coming too late for "early" wars.

When your leader isn't Organized, courthouses become a chokepoint. Size 8 is too much for quick whip, 120 hammers is too much for quick manual construction. And there is nothing to do about civics cost.

Obviously, Organized leaders and especially Organized leaders with quality early UUs work best for this strategy.

On the other hand, there are leaders that just don't mix well with this strategy. Their traits don't offer synergy to it. Financial/Philo will compensate for Organized, but they will force you to go more CE or SE. But a leader like Churchill, for example, has nothing to offer you. His synergy lies with mid-game Redcoat wars. You could use him for my strategy, in fact it may be the best route for the space race win, but English swords and expensive courthouses will do inferior to Romans all things being equal.

I do play random leaders on Immortal, but I choose my strategy and preferred win according to the leader I get.

What I'm worried about is the time before you research CoL. If you wait till CoL before you expand to more than 4 cities, you probably have no more good land to settle. You'd have to conquer the border cities of your not-so-near neighbour, but by then you'd probably need catapults to make any significant progress. So you wait till Construction, but by then your neighbour might already have longbows. So the war becomes a delayed and drawn-out one, slowing you down in the process. The natural thing to do then is to conquer your whole continent and hope to catch up thanks to the sheer amount of territory you have.

I see how Organised can help, but I still need to wait for CoL if I don't want to crash my economy.