I recently picked up Civ again and lost two games in a row now to what appears to be the AI:s "sensing my weakness". I can never keep up with the AI power meter.
Just "building up when needed" doesn't work for me unless I'm lucky enough to have a good choke-point where I can hold them off. But usually they will just move in with a doomstack + lots of catapults and take a border city within 2-4 turns. How do you counter something like that when playing light on unit maintenance?
Is the whole strategy based around not being attacked and if it happens you die?
That is I find the biggest problem on really high levels - So many games go down the drain because you can't afford to upkeep a sufficiently large army. Just lost one now, where whilst I was slightly ahead technologically (Only I had Cannons, and had just researched Rifles) - I could never live with an AI (Sury) who DOWed me with a SOD of 107 units (15 Trebs, 40 knights, 30 odd Macemen + other stuff) even with drafting Rifles, I wouldn't survive, but as usual 1 DOW isn't the problem, Sury got Hannibal to DOW me (both were 0.5 superior strength) and needless to say I'm history.
I reflect on the game - I know I couldn't compete militarily, the AI's advantages are just insanely superior, you have to get enough turns of Rifle/Cannon to start catching up. So could I have kept the peace Diplomatically.
Pre-War I had Open Borders +2, Peace +1, Fair Trade +2, -1 Past Events, -1 DOW Friend (very start of game, I was Inca) -2 First Impression, -1 Refused to join war.
Thus 0 - I needed to find +3 from somewhere. +2 if I'd given him Steel. Perhaps could have matched religion (Had been Free Religion from Shwedagon) - But if I adopt his religion I would risk Cathy (another neighbour DOWing me) 0.6 to me and i'm -2 as it is.
I think maybe its all about sucking up - make all AI happy, until you're ready (but you have to rely on the AI not getting too far ahead, i.e trading Steel/Rifle before you get it) Alternatively you find a better way to fund an army....!
In fact the only Immortal games I've won are always peaceful - 2 Cultural Victories + 1 Space Race, at no point did I go to war in any of those games, despite being 0.1 to most AIs - But I see so many posts about winning these tough levels with an army!