The real aggressors in this version seem to be the independents. It's actually pretty interesting, because it's a cure for forward-settling. So far only 25% into antiquity, I've seen 4 ai cities get razed by independents, but they were all settled much too far away. I think it makes the early game a lot more interesting, because even though the ai players are only declaring war on each other 1 or 2 times in the ancient era, it's still creating changing borders that adjust to the territory as some over-expand and get pushed back by the barbarians.
I wonder if this is the reason why I see a lot less war than others actually. Since I'm playing on marathon, the barbs have a lot more time to cause havoc and the ai players take much longer to build up their troops. I wouldn't even be surprised if there's a bug in the core game where the independents are producing units at the normal speed, and not an increased cost for marathon speed.
Either way, this version is feeling really great! I still see the AI furious at me and with an army at my borders, but never declaring war, but they're at least declaring on each other sometimes.
