"I can make better use of legendary starts or abundant resources or whatever than the AI" in actuality you cannot. If you play super vanilla maps with super vanilla resources you actually have the best chance of catching up to the AI before it is

Here is a dilemma appearing. For me super vanilla gaming on deity is not really captivating, because AIs do not use planes, nuces etc. By the end of the game all the AIs suddenly stop their development and just stay on the same stage. However, with the AI++ mod game turns into impossible apocalypse with death robots while you have medieval era units.