Ive died twice at the start and still won the game successfully. Quite a few times too..

Sounds like you are missing a key point.  They are not lvl 5 from killing you, but from killing lots of minions.  The gap is likely increased because you spent time dead, but you can make it up quickly.  Play hit and run and don't focus on the demigods, hit minions and flags, while avoiding enemy demigods for a bit.  Quickily you will be up to a similar lvl and with a decent amount of cash.  Remember, in general, most of your experience comes from minion kills, while money comes from demigod and tower kills.

Yes I think I am starting to catch on to that.  Almost to the point that flags can mean much less production than just farming NPC's for levels at the beginning.

BTW I only rage quit once yesterday.  Not bad.  And that was just because my team was annoying.

if your team has 2-3 deaths on their side early on it isn't that hard to make a come back if you are actually equally skilled as your opponents and they just got a good combo or your team messed up a bit in the beginning, but if your team just is weaker skillwise then the other team you probably won't be able to turn the tide.

yes, comeback is possible.   especially with rook.  he is kinda weak in the beginner, but strong late endgame.  He is almost a one hit killer.  Boulder roll and hammer slam max will bring any demigod down to just a few hundred hitpoints.  A few extra hits or if a demigod partner next to you is almost unstoppable. 

It comes down to playing better. You die when you slip up. So it just follows logic that the next time you're going to have to not slip up to not die. And the difficult thing is you have to play *that* much better than the other guy to make up for lost time. but it's winnable. Take any fighting game tournament player. It could go either way every time. No matter how outmatched you seem to be there is nearly always a way. In Demigod, numerical superiority gives way to teamwork and effective usage of skills.

Usually the only citadel upgrades I go for are the creatures.  The rest of the cash usually goes towards my demi-god until late.