But isn't "don't tech rifling" going against everything you stand for?
Like Shaka switching from Police State into Representation.
In my latest (but failed attempt) to win huge lakes, no tech trading, on deity, I played sitting bull of native America. I built the wall, whipped zigs, ran an espionage economy. I did a slingshot for CoL since I had to spread my state religion to Mansu Musa to maximize the efficiency of the early game espionage economy. I also had statue of Zeus to rot down the warmongers.
The main challenge is that declaring your own state religion gets you dogpiled. Hence, the choice to play sitting bull and allow the Ai's suicide into drill four longbows (granting a lot of great generals)
Yet the other challenge is nothing other than a great wall opening with a philosophical leader can ever hope to win on these settings, and only a state religion makes it possible.
It was in this game that I realized you could tech machine guns without first teching rifling (never tried it before), retaining the Chichen Itza bonus. The original plan was to longbow turtle into rifles.
I then switched to Immortal and played Sitting Bull of Russia to test the idea. It worked well. Also my UU (Cossack), was capable of a breakout against the weakest players.
I had mass machine guns and castles, slaying their medieval armies. By the time they had rifles, grens and cannons (which still all die to machine guns), I had the research institutes (russia's UB), by the time they had assembly line and artillery, I had jet fighters, mobile art and mech infantry.
I then tried this idea again and failed on deity.
The biggest problem on deity is that that you need a high city count to make an specialist economy work, and with no tech trading, it feels impossible to conquer a neighbor in a timely fashion. Not to mention they always build the mids before I do since I had to dedicate my wonder efforts towards the great wall.
On immortal you can build the wall, build an army to conquer the nearest neighbor while buildings the mids upon moving out with that army.
On deity I have to quit half the games on turn 100 (marathon) because HP, Rammy or Bismarck build the wall.
On deity I cannot run a split specialist economy of two great spies + representation scientists, because I can never build the mids. Hence the need to play a state religion and play a pure EE until biology. Problme of course being that I can't conquer enough land on diety. so fml.
Anyway, it works great on Immortal. But like everything, fails on Deity.
Perhaps I have to give into the dreaded fail gold strategy, at least in the early game.
I have a grand total of four deity wins on those settings playing in the past decade (all with Boudica of Sumeria), and they all had the same thing in common:
A neighbor that build the Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis with high sea level on the Lakes map with 2+ gold in their cap.
Followed up by the second nearest neighbor having the Colossus and the Mids, allowing me to switch to police state and crank out 100 vultures, while putting all my citizens on sea commerce tiles and keeping open borders for ToA + Great Lighthouse. I won the games before 500 AD, with only the weakest players still standing. Even though they have longbows and castles, a stack of 200 ultra promoted charismatic vultures has no respect for it lol.
Obviously this isn't reliable, since I can't force my nearest neighbors to build wonders for me. Not to mention you have threaten AI's for their gold to support the 200 vultures. If no AI's have gold, or refuse, you go on strike and your vultures dissapear. Hence, I've lost to Strike even when capturing the above four wonders. Not reliable, and therefore, not viable. I don't even count those four victories as legitmate, but rather as blind luck, regarldess of the edffort that went into them.
