Brian Shanahan
Permanoob
Lazy?! I believe it takes much more skill to dominate in civ V. It takes quite a bit of effort to take a single city in civ V (given no huge technological advantages), just due to the fact that you are limited to a single unit per hex...........civ iv, ahh just send the 20 unit stack..problem solved
Much more skill? This was a game that was being regularly beaten by many on the highest setting, with no gimping of the AI or buffing the human start, almost from the very beginning. With Civ 4 you still have to be very lucky or be giving yourself a big advantage in order to beat Deity (unless you're a top, top SP player)
The terrible AI (which is utterly incompetent at actually playing the game) is the main reason why this situation happened, and it still remains in the game, thus meaning that any attempt to make it harder (which was all nerfing strategies, not improving the game or AI) or more difficult to win fails and hard.
The biggest obstacle to winning Deity remains the utter boredom from continuously clicking end turn.