grs, I don't necessarily want to go for Space, anything but diplo (unless we technically have won by that time anyway) is fine for me. I only want to see if modern era bugs show up; naturally, this era was tested by far less during beta.
Continents, why not? Or, we could play on a 80% water large map with continents, to make ships even more important.
About the Civ for the Deity game:
Unless Archipelago, AGR is a must-have.
So, we have Mali (+COM), Celts (+REL), Iros (+EXP), Sioux (+MIL), Babylon (+SCI), Egypt (+IND) and Siam (+SEA).
* Mali is out since we played Mali inTJ02, and AGR/COM is choosen all the time anyway.
* Of the remaining 6 Civs, only the Gallic and the Sioux MW are even second-tiers, the other 4 UUs are useless for a high-level game. Most of them will be already outdated when we manage to connect Iron or Horses, and we do not want an ultra-early GA by Archer UUs. But SCI/AGR, REL/AGR (and SEA/AGR for the correctmap settings) are superior trait combos.
For a continent map, my ranking would be:
1) Celts. Mediocre UU (we won't build any Swords before the AI runs around with Knights, but with move 2 and enslavement still useful). REL is much more important in RaR - we need to revolt at least twice, but 3 or 4 times is more realistic for Space victory.
2) Babylon. Completely useless UU, but SCI is another really great RaR trait. But then, Sumeria is played over and over again anyway.
3) Siam. UU is a 4.1.1 Sword, pretty bad. But SEA is a killer trait as well, especially for late game research, and commerce. Top choice for archipelagos.
4) Sioux. 4.2.3 MW with enslavement...(note Knights are 5.2.2, and Chevaliers one tech later 6.2.2 for more sp). Would be my second favorite for pangea.
Note my bias to any of this 4 is small, I'd play them all.
Egypt and Iros are out.
Edit: Gyathaar, then you will be in both. What level are you familiar with, btw? Never seen you in a SG (but IIRC in CotM). Doesn't matter for the RaR TG, but DocT3 is about DG difficulty.