@fjordan and @Gliese
Agreed, you just have to play very well and be a bit lucky in the beginning of the game. An early rush on you is often game over.To lessen the chance of this happening play a Big_and_Small map as Rusten suggested some time ago, i've tried these a few times and indeed you often have some more room to expand, also as far as i have seen all the ais are always reachable with a boat making these maps a bit easier than fractal, very good for the beginning deity player. If i have time to post an open challenge again i'll probably present such a map.
Having said that some deity games are incredible difficult without an early rush too, it can be very difficult to stop an early runaway ai for instance especially if your own land leaves something to be desired. But this is where playing very well (including a well thought out gamble) comes in of course.