I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This is my first Deity-level XoTM victory, and I'm happy to have acheived that before Civ V comes out.
But honestly, this one was made too easy... though I can imagine it could have been hard ddepending on what happened in a far away land (stuff the player has absolutely no control over). I expect that the numbers of submitted victories will be higher for this than for any other deity-level xotm, which means my accomplishment will not get all the attention it deserves
.
OK... at 500AD I had caravels heading east and west. Met the AI. Nobody there has an advantage over the others. Biggest has 3 cities, and smallest has... 3 cities. Lots of wars, but very little fighting (as judged by only 1 or 2 GG's being born the whole game, despite virtually perpetual wars).
First religion spread to me is Hindu in capitol. But only DeGaulle is hindu and he is hated (at war with 2), so no chance I adopt religion. I have opened borders with Bhudist block (Cathy, Sury, and Peri), and so have taken sides, trying to woo favor. Then Bhudism spreads to a 1-pop coastal city and I adopt it. For a long time I make no effort to spread, since I am busy with the usual empire maintenance and don't have monotheism yet anyhow.
My first was a GSci, and he builds Academy in capitol. That's not a bad move. My next is a GE from Pyramids, who I save in hopes of getting another wonder out of. 20 turns later, seeing the only early wonder I can hope to get is Apo Palace, and I don't want to make that in Hindu, I'll let be. 2 turns later Apo Palace is built by Cathy in Bhudism. I have traded for Montheism (and everything else I can get for compass and Optics from the Bhudist group -- which is a lot) and slave out a missionary... On turn of Diplo Victory vote (Cathy vs Peri) I manage to infect my largest city with Bhudism and am able to prevent Cathy religious victory (She + Sury had enough to win diplo victory when the vote came up!!!). I vote Peri and get the +2 "you voted for us" from him. Then I see I have almost as many votes as Peri does, and my VC strategy is clear - infect a few more cities Bhudist, take over the AP, and win with help of Peri and Sury.
However, I must survive 3 more votes before another election, at 10 turns between votes. Then I panick and see that Darius has sent a scout to my continent already, which still has a lot of space left to settle. Yikes! I better start spamming settlers!!! (It was about 20 turns and full coastal continental coverage later that I realize that the scout is mine, left on autoexplore for some reason
). Oh well, it made me do what I needed to do, anyhow.
I joined lots of wars, against DeGaulle (x3), Shaka (x2), and Gilga(x1) at allied request and never fought. Felt pretty safe since none had astro yet.
The AP stpped war against Darius once, and 10 turns of peace felt good at the time since most of my cities did not even have a single defender.
Finally I get elected AP resident (my own votes more than suffice for this by now, as I have been over Dom limit in pop for most of the game)... Sury will vote for me, Peri might. Lots of resources to trade and gift means that eventually I will get high enough diplo with Peri to win. However, 3 turns before I can propose victory, DeGaulle converts to Bhuda, and that means my 462 votes (me + Sury + Peri) is now 3 votes shy of that needed for victory. So more settler spamming, more farming, Biology... with 7 turns left to a vote I start getting worried I might need to slave down my pop to have the victory vote option. So waste a GE on a golden age just in case I need to switch (running Castes with merc and about 200 cities is pretty good, but if you need to whip, you need to get ready for quick switch to slavery). I did not need to switch, and win game with 5 turns left on my Golden Age. Funny... I've never even thought of trying a Religious victory in a game where EVERY city on the planet has the Apo religion. But on this map with my tech path it was inevitable that it would work, just a matter of time.
Total warring: my caravel kills a french galley in defense, and my caravel kills a french workboat. Oh yeah... that scout (the original, as I never built one) got himself killed by Gilga while on autoexplore on the other continent.
Lots of "war-time" but no war weariness, plenty of happy and healthy resources... I'm sure the milkers will do well this game. All my milking was incidental to getting the fastest victory I could. result 1615AD Religious diplo victory with score over 173 thousand. As backup plan I had built a force of Galleons/Frigates/rifles/cannons and could easily take over France, Zulu, and/or Sumeria to get domination (know this because of scouting airships stationed in Russia)-- with slavery I could build oodles of units per turn if I wasn't hoarding my population, and I was already far away the power leader (led every category on demo screen except public opinion). Didn't trade techs after astro, not to anyone... so all self-researched everything past that... and was pulling away quite easily. Could have won any way I wanted, since the AI were so limited and could not expand. Only thing I did to help that was trade some metal to Sury so France couldn't kill him.
Closest to beating me was Monte with culture (3 cities with 6 religions in each, and tons of WW's), but he was at least 96 turns from his 3rd going legendary, and it was defended by 5 longbows
(though his other cities had over 20 musket/ren units each). I gave peace a chance, though, because transcontinental warring can get pretty tedious and lead to complicated diplomacy, whereas a religious vc was pretty straightforeward in my game. This is very unusual situation for Deity level in most of my games.
I did get Liberalism first... forget what year, took Printing Press. (Caused me to miss Taj by a lot of turns... but I was not really trying that hard to get it, obviously.) Only wonder I did get (or even try for besides Taj) was Pyramids, I think. Astro in about 500AD or a couple turns later. Oxford in 960AD. I think I built national epic in Oxford city, but too late to be much good. Settled most of my GP in capitol, and these were GSci and GE for the most part... got free GM (settled) and free GSci (bulbed Biology). Was building Nat Park when I won.
Only thing that bugged me a little was Sury founding two cities in the south arctic watselands that never reached size 2. Hey.... That's MY land, jerk! I really messed up holding that GE so long and then settling him, though. That was just indecisive stupidity.
Thank you for an emminently winnable Deity level set-up. However, I did not find it as challenging as I expected from the difficulty level, and therefore am less excited about my victory than I would have been had I felt I really
earned it. If you put barbs on, this is an entirely different game, for example, that would have required mastery of many more aspects of the game in order to win. But I won't complain - a win is a win and I enjoyed that a lot!
from Cereal Mills and 11 
from Mining Inc, but the extra cost, not to mention the higher population (happiness issue?) required to make the extra food worthwhile make the Corporations unattractive. Plus, I currently don't have a GE up my sleeve. I might hedge my bets here - take Communism ASAP while still in current Taj Mahal golden age, while posting engineers in my 
cities and hope for a GE - then I'll decide. Maybe I can get Representation in time for the Civic Switch as well...
and have 24 cities. Next turn most wealth cities will switch to factories/coal plants and it should be interesting to see how the tech rate improves. Now might be an opportune time for a golden age actually.
