Hereditary Rule was my key to this one. Huayna, and Louis favor HR. Qin Shi Huang favors Bureaucracy, also easy for an OCC. Stalin is your typical psycho idiot, state property shouldn't interfere with Roosevelt's preference for Free Market since he won't be likely to run it. Roosevelt is generally peaceful, but can be really hated. Augustus Caesar favors representation. He may be the one you want to run away with population due to representation his lack of favorite civic diplo points.
I added Pacal and Joao for their preference of Hereditary Rule. I love Joao, but if he ends up next to you, he may run away with the population and that would not be good.
My start had three hills pigs, one gold on a river, a lot of forests, just under half river tiles, one flood plain and stone in the third culture expansion ring. I eventually picked up corn and ivory too. Settling on stone or marble would be ideal, for the hammer boost and potential wonder spam. I would avoid the Great Wall to prevent Great Spy poison. Since 6 of my 8 opponents were industrious, I figured the wonders would go quick and I didn't try for any of them. In my game, I popped BW, so I could have tried to chop a wonder, but the forests are too precious for that.
I did not use random events, but did use goody huts. I lucked into AH and BW from huts. No copper or horses in BFC. I researched archery for Barb/fog busting. I did have some barb problems and had my gold and on of my pigs pillaged. I whipped a library and one archer (due to barb pressure). I researched Writing, then Alphabet. I got my first GS around 1200 BC. I was able to pick up most early techs by trading writing. I held Alphabet for a while. And then I researched Aesthetics. I eventually traded Alphabet for Mathematics and Iron. Then I went for CoL. When I got my first GS, I had about seven turns left on CoL and didn't have Meditation or sailing yet, so I went academy instead of trying to bulb philosophy. I was also getting a culture push and the academy helped push back. I traded to get Monarchy to get into hereditary rule. I recalled my fog busters for garrison duty, put GS production on hold and grew quickly to my happy cap. Since I was on epic, I revolted right away since one turn of anarchy isn't too bad. I then researched CS to get into bureaucracy.
I ended up with Louis and Pacal as my neighbors. Loius ended with an early population lead and it was clear that he would be my UN opponent. Joao was slow to switch to HR. I ended up having Joao and Pacal (Buddhism) on one side of me and Louis and Huayna (Hinduism) on the other side. I had decent protection from attack due to wisely chosen civics. Once I built up enough diplo cushion, I switched to Hinduism, which I was able to use for almost the rest of the game.
I had several trade partners due to religion and favorite civic bonuses. I picked up Metal casting with a Civil Service trade and got a forge up for GE points.
Louis backstabbed at friendly. He did have WHEOOHRN, but I thought I was safe. I think the reason he attacked at friendly was that Stalin bribed him to attack me since Stalin went to war with me the same turn too. Louis sent one stack of 5 horse archers and one chariot. So I turned an archer into a longbow and built a few spearmen. He attacked, lost his stack and then made peace. Stalin could't get to me due to closed borders and we made peace much later.
I researched paper, bulbed 1/2 of education, and traded paper for the last 2/3 of philosophy. As I got close to liberalism, I had already picked up machinery and compass in trade. I had pre-chopped my forests and chopped a university and Oxford while researching liberalism. I traded for optics at the last minute and took astronomy with free tech from liberalism.
I was late to build the National epic, wanting to delay the GA poison. The only specialist I ran was an engineer and popped a GE with about a 60% chance. At this point, I had all cottages and no farms. Since I had a strong garrison, I didn't need the globe theater early on to allow me to grow.
There were several wars waged around me that tried my diplomacy. There was a war on Pacal that Louis and many others were in on that gave him a diplo edge. I couldn't risk joining in because I was weak. Later, there was a relative dog-pile on Stalin that I did join in on.
I was first to Scientific Method. Qin Shi Huang beat me to Physics by one turn. I was first to radio and mass media, used my GE and chopped five forests to get the UN the next turn.
My late game diplo dilemma was to try and get Augustus Caesar on board or to try to stick with Pacal. The problem was that they were each others' worst enemies. I didn't have to use any spies for late game manipulations.
In the end I pulled out victory by two votes on the first diplo victory ballot, as Stalin is attacking me:
Even if I got the UN, they tended to like the #1 pop guy (Louis) better than me. I had copper in ring3, but Qin would use espionage and pillage that, then DOW same turn (did this to me 3 times).
After reflecting, I think I got fairly lucky. This was my first attempt where I didn't get overrun by barbs. I got lucky from huts (your favorite!) I got lucky that when Louis attacked, he sent a weenie stack. I got lucky that my next door neighbor that founded Buddhism, the odd religion out, got dog-piled, and that ultimately, I converted him to the popular religion and his last 19 votes boosted me to victory. 
). But I am very pleased in that I set my goals high (by playing Immortal rather than Emperor) and was able to acheive a win. Very challenging indeed!
). That's what its about!
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