Cheers for the strategy Deau- it allowed me my first diety win, on t286, since a cheesy Duel companion cavalry rush when the game came out. I tried it with tommynt's 4 city Poland since they're rather overpowered and finished trad and liberty, before opening aesthetics then going secularism. Also managed to get the Oracle, and late Pyramids, as no one went liberty.
One of your strat's better aspects is it allows for either a science win or a diplo win if you miss some key wonders or have to go to war- I almost went for a SV when I missed the Louvre by 3 turns, but Broadway, Uffizi, Hermitage, Oxford, and 4 museums with a double theming bonus turned out to be enough. I probably could have won earlier if I hadn't waited for an archeologist to fill the last museum slot, and simply used all the GMs on the nearest cultural powerhouse (Babylon).
When I started the game, and noticed there was a 9 tile gap between Attila's capital and mine I thought I was a goner. I somehow managed to bribe him into perpetual war against someone that wasn't me throughout the game, and bribes weren't even necessary once the AIs got ideology, as he of course went autocracy, unlike all his neighbors. Once the human players or the other AIs reach artillery he isn't too threatening- his tech rate is pretty abysmal, so he ended the game with his GWI, leftover cannons, and odd piece of artillery getting bombed by enemy GWB and actual infantry.
Another weird aspect of the game was that Brazil settled between two of my city's, cutting my empire in half- I needed to keep open borders with them throughout the game to keep my city connection gold flowing. All in all, the game felt too peaceful for me- I don't feel Attila should have put off attacking me, even after denouncing me, given how close we were and my complete absence of an army. Brazil also should have attacked me, or at least not maintained a DoF with me throughout the game given our ridiculous border situation. I feel like as long as you have a sufficiently strong economy to pay heavy bribes you can always avoid war in BNW.
Although I wonder whether going liberty/trad is a good idea with a Poland cultural win- I had a kick-ass religion (DF, Pilgrimage, Pagodas, Mosques, Itinerant Preachers), but I only every bought Pagodas in all (but one of) my cities, as I used a lot of faith on missionaries, and after industrial I wanted to stockpile. Perhaps going trad opener, then piety -> organized religion -> cheaper missionaries/buildings, finishing trad, patronage -> consulates, open aesthetics, rationalism -> secularism would have been better. The major downside to this is not getting the liberty finisher GE, and slower expansion. I'm not at all sure I could have gotten the liberty GE on Pisa -> Pisa GE on Uffizi -> hard build PT snowball without it.
Anyone seen the AI's go rationalism on Deity or Immortal? It seems that not doing so, and not running all their science specialists, and their city spamming just puts them completely out of the tech game by the late industrial relative to the human player.
Another question- has anyone won a sub 250 culture game on Deity?