This might be the hardest deity game I've ever played.
@unas876 you were absolutely diabolical in presenting this map (I assume edited, because there's never gold just laying on the ground like that or crab in the ocean and the pig behind the mountain seems too cruel to be randomly generated; also the start is just a special type of bad), but I prevailed against all odds (literally - I reloaded several times because it would've been impossible to win given the presented situation had I taken the first result that came my way).
The only reason I won was because I got super lucky in that Hannibal decided to go culture for some reason, but right BEFORE he got the Big Three industrial era military techs (RR, AL, and artillery). Otherwise 17 cities with factories mass-producing infantry would have been far too much for a dozen whipping cannons to overcome. Meanwhile, Mansa decided to go culture as well, but pretty late, meaning I could casually reach nukes and then pound him with 2 tacticals per city a few dozen turns before he was ever really in danger of winning (but he also didn't get gunships, or have uranium anywhere, meaning mech infs were the toughest foes I faced). This map was a true test of warfare prowess but, as these examples prove, it was
extremely luck-based with many factors totally out of the player's control. At least on this start, with this batch of foes, without reloading or prior knowledge, I reckon even the best players would have a 10% or less shot of beating it.
I really have to sleep now, will post more thoughts and details later. But despite the cooked settings it was a very entertaining and nail-biting game through and through. I got to use every single era of warfare (HA rush -> engineering "rush" at 1000AD -> cannons and rifles vs Hannibal 1440AD -> tanks and nukes vs Mansa 1800s -> modern armor slaughter against Kublai endgame), which was actually something I've never gotten to do before; in fact I do not believe I've ever even attacked with trebs on deity. Other firsts: being quite grateful I was Charlie (TWELVE GGs throughout the entire game generated certainly handy, fast monuments really needed to reach the food and horses, and schecky-schnekts saved my butt against Pacal when I was lacking for CS), 1-pop settler (gotta go fast when you're up against Justinian), moving my cap to a not-terrible location, and I tried a little US economy near the end with Hannibal's generously donated swaths of towns, buying nukes and tanks (strangely enough, US hurry production cost does not seem to be affected by production modifiers, which combined with the 3 to 1 conversion ratio is probably what makes it terrible most of the time).
