Epic+Prince+18 Civs

[BlowPhish]

Well I've beaten prince with the standard number of civs without too much difficulty on epic. However with 18 civs and technology trading ON no space race no diplo I'm having a hard time. It seems in the stages up to gunpowder I'm leading or close to leading the tech race. Usually I'll sack a city at a time when I go to war to avoid stifling my economy. The problem is after gunpowder the Ai begins to leave me behind. Those leaders with the financial traits like mansu and elizibeth will get their banks+grocers+markets built and next thing ya know I'm 2 techs behind no matter how much trading I'm doing.

Does anyone have advice for me with these settings? I was thinking of warring with the financial leaders from the start to prevent them from becoming too advanced. Mainly I find the financial leaders to be fairly peacefull but the problem is they trade their techs which I don't have to their allies and next thing ya know alexander and montezuma have higher techs than me. This has happend a few times now and I'll just restart when I realize there is no catching up. I've tried several different leaders but I'd like to beat it with a NON-financial leader. Right now I'm using the canada mod with John A Macdonald who is expansive - organized. Starting techs are hunting and fishing.

Any advice you guys could give would be appreciated.

 

[CivCorpse]

Attack earlier in the game and completely take over the AI you attack. You will slow down temporarily as your economy takes a hit, but when it recovers you will have a lot more commerce being pumped out. There cities may produce more per turn but you will have more overall due to having MORE cities.