Gave this another read, as I seem to kind of horribly fail on trying to win the sweden deity challenge with culture win.
What seem now superimportant to me is having desert folklore or somethings else to generate lot faith early to get these culture buildings up. Dont really see this in your guide.
Otherwise i see no way to keep up with AI faith generation, pagodas and cathedrals might be even gone .. and without those there is no way to achive these huge faith number u want/need later on not to speak of that it seems imposible/hard to get them up before they get expensive ...
What i m wondering and dont see in your guide is wheater/when its a good idea to fill those writer/mussician/artists guids and when and what to do with them.. I started filling them midgame but this leads to the next problem - food haeavy cap needed.
You plant those artists as landmarks?
now even less food on tiles ...
But u want fill guilds to possibly fill these slots with works from different eras?
Also i wonder why u suggest to go 3 into piety but not 5 if u starte piety allready there is no real reason not get 2 more imo. Even when winning without these +2 tourism thing can work it surly doesnt hurt espacially as it comes kinda early and adds up?
Do u think deity cult win can work without desert folklore start land? Or faith wonder close.
Can u show? Maybe try the sweden challenge (where there are even few desert tiles)
With my exxperience from this 1 game tourism win seem just brokken and way harder as other winning ways and espacially land dependent to achive to me. I dont even want imagine what happens when the build order gets dirupted by an ai attack - there is so much stuff u want/need have ..
I gave a quick shot at DC28. The start just does not lend itself to CV at all. It is extremely rough to pull a CV without a very strong capital and there is just nowhere to settle to have enough early growth on this map. I'm not saying it's impossible but it would require lots of luck. I'll give a shot at it again tomorrow without the piety opener and just use the pantheon and pray that I snag 5th religion but I doubt it.
My first ride I stopped around T200, I was lining up my first faith GE to rush-buy the Louvre (extremely slow paced science from lack of growth in all 3 cities, even though I had +10% pantheon and +15% swords into plowshare in capital to attempt to offset the lack of food). Poland runaway from my bribes -_- built it about 7 turns before I could rush it and I had already given up on Uffizi for more late game wonders. It was winnable by science at that point, that's about it.
I don't think DF is that important. You primarily just need to catch "5th religion" so as to farm and plant 3-4 GPs by around industrial. If Messiah enhancer is taken, just plant the 2nd bonus and don't enhance. Even without piety, 3 settled GP + grand temple + 2-3 shrines & temples make up 47 FPT after freedom. It means it will take more or less 120 turns to get the required 5k faith assuming no CSs kicked in. With that in mind, it does obviously boost a game by an absurd margin. It has always been and will always be.
You don't need any religious buildings with the "catch 5th faith" objective. You just ought to have a mean to produce 5k faith between industrial and the end of the game. If anything, I simply purchase the buildings in my satellite cities based on whatever my neighbors spread to me. The issue when not catching 5th religion is that you can't produce GPs and can't get grand temple and that's the alternative to a start without a good FPT pantheon.
However, the more I work the strategy out on significantly more crippled starts, the more I am leaning towards accepting your statement in that other thread that CV is significantly harder than other strats. Requiring a slightly better start is one thing but it seems to require more than just that.
Trying to read back through your post to make sure I answer everything..
Landmarks are no longer GAs planted. They are built from archeologists. Basically any ancient ruin can be made a landmark so any such ruin within 3 tile of any of your city should be made a landmark instead of an artifact. It REALLY blows if you RNG 0 such landmarks. I'm used to catching 1 per city other than the capital sometimes +1 although rarely within 3 tiles of capital which gets double dip benefit from NVC.
I only suggest 2 piety at first. Your total CPT output will dictate if you eventually fill the leftover 4 points later in the game. Filling piety by no means competes with rationalism and as you enter renaissance you kinda need to hit 2 rationalism, explo opener and aesthetic opener which is taxing enough.
Guild allocation. Most Wonders ask for GP from the same era aside from the louvre which is extremely easy to achieve so typically, you want to line the first GP at the start of an era so as to hopefully grab a 2nd by the end of the era. However, in a weaker opener where you likely won't catch more than Sistine /Uffizi/louvre "and even then", it means that the GWs will only fill slots without theming bonuses so it does not matter.
Museum Bonuses will typically be gained from artifacts so really the only GAMW you should put effort to pop multiple during the same era would be great artists ideally 2 from the same era for Sistine. When they pop is more a matter of how much food you can spare to work the specialists which was why I mentioned outright the need for a strong food capital in the original post (although I may not have put enough emphasis on this).
GMs, I usually don't build the guild or at very least don't work the GM slots until modern if I shoot for broadway and not at all until shortly before the internet otherwise. They contribute more to victory by allowing you to target a specific runaway as concert tours and specifically if you can't achieve 5k faith, saving the GM cost to start at 100 in atomic era will be your only chance left to catch up not having to pray that spam next turn will win you before some AI launches.
So long story short, work GAs and GWs slots as soon as you can afford the growth or hammer halt. In poor starts, I would likely set each in satellite cities and go for crazy science in capital and simply not work the scientist slots in those cities until later. In outstanding growth capitals, getting both GA and GW in capital means further science from NC/secularism as well as increased CPT from hermitage later in the game but I guess that will be hard to achieve on most starts.
I definitely think that it is achievable without a faith wonder or DF but I am slowly leaning towards believing that it requires some FPT pantheon to catch late 5th religion - at least to be somewhat competitive with turn-to-victory. Sure you can eventually win without a religion and little faith but it makes a hard VC even harder.
I've been playing around a little with another alternative slow opener involving ToA so as to pop a GE slightly before universities GS happens (or together although last time I tried that I somehow didn't get both GPs - I don't know if it was me missing a rounding issue and either happening 1 turn earlier or if they "fixed" multipops).
As I've mentioned a few times, I'll iterate until I can figure out a somewhat generic solution but currently the piety opener alternative means no early patronage and realistically you need a very strong growth capital with some decent barb quest and other quests RNG with culture/maritime CSs to offset the loss of mass friendships.
I'm sure we will come up with something shortly. Glory had already brought up a couple things to look into through replies in this thread.
Hope I've answered or hinted some of your questions.
. I waste gold on units to assault her for white peace. Gold I should have spent on Religious CS, I only had 3,5 k faith upon teching internet. 
