Well i began a game and tackled this problem, and i slaughtered 5 civs on my continent, currenlty destroying the last one, and i am nearing industrial age, and the civs on the other continents are all 2-3 techs behind me, even though they are teaming together to catch up. I have like 60 or so cities, and about 50 of them have libraries and universities. I'm able to have the slider at 30%, get 4 turn techs, and rack up 600 gpt.
I am playing on a mod with reduced corruption, as that is the one thing in this game i cant stand, but alas, i am still impressing myself, im doing better on warlord now than i did on chieftain many months ago.
I guess it sort of balances out since i running without civ traits or UUs.
I was able to solve the one problem i had with Warlord is that the AIs tackle technology much more vigorously, so i should be moving up to regent pretty soon.