I always believe something bad will probably happen when I go to a new place. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than have to come up with a contingency plan after I'm arrested or worse. And it's hard to make a plan when we know next to nothing about this country. And generally speaking, Empires usually have their ducks in a row when it comes to organization. A lot more important to have plans when you are dealing with their governments as compared to city-states.

Unless it's some city-state that decided to call itself an Empire because it sounded more impressive, but that's not the case here.