Here's one: it happened to me many times that AI declares war on me while being far underdeveloped. Like in this game I'm playing as Mali, on the Earth map. Montezuma declared war on me. He doesn't even have frigates while I got missile cruisers. He did nag me with his units on my land, pillaging stuff, but quickly I built ships and am now able to destroy his stacks coming in.
Just look at this... It was a stack of eight ships. I've destroyed more of those stacks, but not in such an aesthetic fashion.