I find it really consistent to win with Brazil, naturally
All I needed was figuring things out, and not giving up early, because I did struggle a lot like I said
it is only moderately situational as in, you could use all those jungles. However, since Brazil has quite some issues in the early game, production wise, I guess there is a certain amount of trade off involved. Basically:
- no production means no wonders
- no religion because on Deity all religions can be taken as early as turn 50 on Standard. Not saying it's always the case, but it happens
+ carnival starts when you're ready to start catching those runaways
+ no wonders means Great Artists can be burned for MORE carnival
+ carnival means more Great Artists which you burn for MORE carnival
+ carnival means your Brazilwood camps would provide you with A LOT of money. That money can and should be used diplomatically.
you get the point. Basically, this is the gameplan:
1. 4 city Tradition NC
2. grow grow grow
3. Patronage opener would conserve alliances you have with Mercantile CSs
4. Win the world fair so nobody else can, on Deity expect north of 1300 hammers. Make sure everyone else is fighting as many wars as possible as a precaution.
4a. Accept whatever religion is on the menu and save up faith from shrines and temples.
5. Universal Suffrage is basically the only tenet you need, and the only real reason to go Freedom as Brazil. Make sure you have saved up the free carnival and extra Great Artist from the Aesthetics tree after that. If you're there early enough, you can pick up a couple of free tenets and that's always good. It's tricky to time the carnival AFTER this tenet but definitely possible.
6. Ready the free carnival in Liberty, you will probably not need that long a carnival but it's the end game and everything goes. A very useful wonder in this case is the Sidney Opera House, you can use a Great Engineer for it. You are likely to have at least one if you staffed your workshops and factories.
Ok, all set, time to party til the end of time!!!
The international games is not really a high priority for the AI so you can time it to be when your cities are optimal, factories fully staffed, cities railroaded and carnival is up. I won the IG by a landslide, making around 3800 hammers.
You will now have a relatively short window of getting as much great musicians as possible. You should get 5 of them, 3 from guilds and 2 from faith. You should have started building the guild earlier but not finished it, because it would contribute points anyway, and you don't need weak musicians.
I am definitely going to try out a game with Sweden, I'll go Tradition/Patronage/Aesthetics/Order most likely because I really want to see how good is Order in a culture game