Communitu/Epic/Deity.
I'd say this had been among the easiest patch. The AI seems to have a hard cap on how many cities they can have. Trad. civs have a hard cap of 4 cities, authority/prog. civs have a hard cap of 7. The AI will only keep conquered city states, or city with wonders. The rest are auto razed. So you actually don't have to do much to win. The AI cannot remain competitive with you on tech/policy with a 4 city economy.
This patch, city states are also very easy to bully and you get insane rewards for bullying. During the initial exploration, your pathfinder can grab tribute from each newly discovered city states. Depending on how many you play with, how far you go, that's an easy 350g++ starting fund. 4-5 spearman will get you max tribute. So rush spears, buy 2 spears with money from pathfinder tribute, upgrade your starting warrior, and build 2 more. You can now roam with this squad to double dip on the tribute game for even more gold and yields.
Then you just steadily expand. There's so much land to grab because you know the AI will never take them. By industrial, the game is essentially won because the AI simply does not have enough yields or unit supply to remain competitive with you. Most AI only have 4 cities, so they can't make an army that's larger than you.
Good thing though, it seems the next patch will address AI not expanding, AI bonuses, and city states bully.
