Great to have you back!!! Enjoy!
Thank you!
And ... well, I used to enjoy the discussions that built around the games that were in progress, so I'll add my own thoughts on this first attempt.
I'm assuming that anyone reading this is fully aware of the basic strategy for a religious victory (APDV), so I won't reiterate all that such luminaries as
Sun Tzu Wu have written more clearly and in greater detail than I ever could anyway. I must mention my own mentor -
Misotu - who was the one who encouraged me to take on Deity the first time. It was her notes on religious victories that I went back to here to refresh my memory.
Leader
I chose Stalin, as he has the Industrious trait which helps with building the wonders, and he also starts with a scout, and you need to find all of the other civs as fast as possible.
AI
I added 3 to the given list of AI. Hattie, Zara and Mansa. I think that these can all be brought up to a good positive attitude towards you relatively easily.
Start
I wanted a start location with some commerce, good food and hills. I had to settle for a spot with gems, corn, cows and plains hills, but only 1 tree anywhere nearby, which wasn't ideal.
Early Strategy
I thought it unlikely that I could take Theology from the Oracle without missing out on the Oracle entirely, so I took the alternative and shorter research route of getting Code of Laws & Confucianism from the Oracle, and then running a Priest in order to generate a Gt Prophet in time to pop Theology & Christianity.
Diplomacy
It settled naturally into place that Toku was the bad guy that everyone hated, and to a lesser extend Qin. So I was able to join the herd, siding with everyone else and not minding if I was very unpopular with Toku and Qin, as they were never going to vote for me anyway.
I joined in wars against Toku, which increased my popularity with several AI, and this upset nobody but Qin. It was a small risk, since Toku was not far from me, but Zara was between us and I ensured Zara and Toku were at war. I was never attacked.
There was a bonus in having Toku relatively close by: Christianity spread to him naturally, so I didn't have to worry about his normal 'closed borders' approach.
Endgame
I had finished the AP at 525BC, but hadn't succeeded in spreading Christianity to all until 0 AD. I also still had problems getting the vote, as my best friends didn't have enough votes yet, and some were just not friendly enough yet.
This phase really dragged, and I thought I was going to have to give up (The later it gets, the harder it is to bring attitudes up through tech trades, as you have been left behind and nobody wants your tech any more)
Finally, Bismarck asked me to convert to the world's most popular religion - Hinduism - just as the AP vote came up. I went for it, knowing that this would also have alienated a couple of my friends who were running Buddhism or Judaism. But I think it helped. I got the vote.
I still think this is a pretty bad date, that most will beat. I may have another go. We'll see.
While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running a series of ten games called the Hall of Fame Challenge Series. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings of one of the games will be counted towards the Challenge.
