idk what y'all talking about
just go mauryan. rush to phase 2. make "wall towers" every 50m and make actual sentry towers behind that. make sure this is away from ur economic heartland. and now make sure you never go near those places of war. now,you just wait till towers kill everyone,or just get an army big enough to kill the ones attacking the wall tower. after that, just build a full walled city and do whatever you want (best if you send a few cav to the middle of the map every noww and then. these dumb bots think doing trade is good)
also possible with athena,as she would have cheaper P2 cost making it much easier to do the walls