I have had some successes with playing on emperor and thought I would try a jump to immortal. I played as a mod civ, JFD's Scotland (excellent mods), on a standard continents map. I had Japan (with Tojo) and the Goths (you can tell I like modded civs) next to me and the Anglo-Saxons and Danes a little further out. It was rather cramped. not a lot of space and I was in the middle. Japan to the west and the Goths to the east. Danes to the south. I knew it would mean early war as there was little room for anyone to expand. There was one lovely location to my south. 4 gems on a river. Some nice hills with sheep and grasslands and Mt Kilamanjaro. Of course, the Goths arrived there 2 turns before my settler was complete. Their 3rd city. Tojo had 4 by this point as he had lots of room to his west. So with nowhere decent to build a city, I declared war on the Goths and razed their new city (which got to size 3 in about 3 turns somehow). I pressured their capital even though they had a bigger army at the beginning. I could not keep up the advance, and settled for peace. Shortly after I founded Glasgow in the location I wanted, Tojo comes calling with his massive army. I rout them (boy the AI can be dumb with their units) and see a large number of Goths on my eastern border as I am about to press home my advantage. So back to fighting a truly massive Goth army....I can see where this is going. My economy is in the tank, My neighbors have clearly higher production and I know with these two "friendly" neighbors, I am going to be constantly at war. Not a recipe for a competitive game. I do very well on emperor but the jump has been brutal each time I have tried it. What I would like to know is what should one be conscious of when trying to adapt their game play to this higher level? Obviously, I needed a decent military. I had a lot of gems, so I was hopeful to get the right pantheon (I met 2 religious CS and got it). I just couldn't get my capital up and running fast enough to get that settler out before the other had 2. I did not think I was going slow, it was just that everyone else got such a head start. When I meet them, they have 2-3 warriors and 2-3 archers at least. Thank you in advance for your advice.