I was very happy with my 2nd replay result An 1844AD space victory:
This was with the adventurer save, and you could argue with prior knowledge of the map, although I am very careful in replays to make decisions based on what I can see, not on what I know is there from previous plays.
My Core Lesson: Leave Louis Alone
I guess this'll be controversial as a lot of people seemed to be arguing for attacking Louis early on, and I thought that too at first. But I now think thats a mistake, and that the reason I won my 2nd replay was that I
didnt attack him too early. Why? Because Louis doesnt have enough land to pose the biggest long-term threat (unless he conquers Egypt first). On deity, the AIs get more powerful a lot quicker than the human can - I think a lesson I learned from my replays was that means the civs to take out first are the ones who have the greatest potential to become massive later on if you dont deal with them first. On this map, that meant Saladin and Alex (and theoretically, Cyrus, but he was too far away to wage war on). Possibly Izzy, though in my games she seemed to get eaten by Alex and Cyrus anyway.
My First Game
My real entry was with the contender save (it was a close call, I was undecided between contender and adventurer right up to the point where I clicked to download the game), and ended very quickly when Alex declared on me. His chariots vs my warriors. Ouch! Id been beelining for iron working, but the DoW happened too early for that.
My First Replay
After that I decided to go with adventurer and see how that panned out. I was more careful with my defence, making sure I had a couple of archers, but also did lots of early land exploration. Even though Id beelined for early iron working, Alex nabbed the iron to the west first, settling on the spot 1N of the iron. I captured the city with a bunch of chariots and then made peace, since with only chariots I didnt think I could do any more. I then hooked up the iron, beelined for construction/catapults, and prepared for the next war. Saladin settled two cities around the jungle just north of my two, and I think I may have captured those, in order to give my empire a more defensible shape, then I decided on Louis as my next target, because he seemed easy, geographically accessible, and had those three gold in his nearest city. In a couple of wars, I annihilated him, also fending off an attack from Alex (who was, obviously, now a bit pissed with me).
That took me to sometime after 500AD, at which point I took stock, and realized my situation was hopeless. Even though I had all of Louis land, both Alex and Saladin were angry with me, and both far too powerful and technologically advanced for me to stand any chance against either of them. The only civ I could take out was my friend Egypt, and that still wouldnt leave me much better off since Hatshepsut only had good, non-tundra, land for two good cities plus Id lose my only friend.
The (Hopefully) Winning Strategy
Based on my unfinished second game, I decided on the following guidelines I should follow when playing deity, to be tested with a third attempt at the game.
1. Try to get a settler so you have at least two cities before you declare war. (I really wasnt comfortable waging war on Alex in order to get my 2nd city in my previous game meant I had a civ annoyed with me very early on and I had few defences to fall back on). Also, two cities early does make it more likely that when copper/iron pop up, youll have access to one of them.
2. Beeline for iron working. Do what you can militarily with IW, while then beelining for construction/catapults. (Thats actually what Id been doing in all my games, so no new strategy there).
3. Unless there is some strategic reason for doing otherwise, always first attack the civ that has the greatest potential to become massive in the future. Do not wipe this civ out (because while youre spending turns doing that, on deity, another civ will be becoming massive). Instead, just take enough cities to weaken that civ, get some techs for peace, and then go for whoever is now heading to be the biggest civ. You can finish the first civ off later. A corollary of this is you need to scout out the land very early on, so you know who has the kind of land thats going to make them a big threat.
The 2nd Replay
So how did I win? Well I played adventurer, settled on the hill 2E of the start position (as Id done in every game). Built a settler first (not sure how that wouldve worked on contender, where youre not starting with a worker), and nabbed the spot 1N of the iron. (At that point, I wasnt going for the iron Remember, Im taking care to not use information I dont know in my decision making; rather it was the case that, luckily, even without the iron being visible, that was clearly the best spot for a 2nd city, having gold and food).
Once Id hooked up iron, the wars went as follows.
I DoWed on Saladin with praetorians. The reason was as in my 2nd game. He had settled the land immediately north of me (one of those cities had founded a religion too). Taking those cities meant I had a square-shaped empire that was much easier to defend than the elongated one Id have by attacking anyone else. Plus they were both new cities without enough culture yet to require catapults.
After I took those cities, I sued for peace, since I didnt think I could do much more without catapults, and the sea to the north of me was a good natural defence. (Remember: Scouting. This is only very early AD, and Ive already explored the entire pangea, so I know where is strategically important).
2. Louis, after worrying me somewhat with lots of units lurking around my territory, declared war on Saladin.
3. Louis, while still at war with Saladin, declares war on me too! The sod! Of course, my rule about attacking the civ with the greatest potential means I dont want a war with him, so I basically just take a city or two of his and sue for peace as soon as hell talk to me.
4. I declare on Alex [looking-like-potentially-most-powerful-civ] with praetorians and cats. I take his two northern cities, thus turning my empire into a rectangle. Then I make peace. He has 4 cities left, which means that Saladin is now the biggest threat. So almost immediately...
5. I declare on Saladin, again taking out 2-3 of his core cities, leaving him fairly weak. Since Im now getting big and powerful, and we long to rejoin our motherland unhappiness is starting to hurt, Im pushing the wars a bit closer towards annihilation.
6. I declare on Louis. Strictly speaking, Cyrus should be the next target, but hes too technologically advanced and far away for me to take on, so Im probably going to have to leave him alone. I pretty much annihilate Louis.
7. I annihilate Alex.
8. I almost annihilate Saladin, except he has a city on an island that I cant be bothered with. Cyrus later does him in completely for me.
Now its taking stock time. Hatty is left, I could take her out but she is pleased/friendly towards me, and is proving a good trading partner. Isabella is tiny but doesnt actually have any decent land any more, with most of ex-Spain now belonging to Cyrus. Cyrus is way ahead of me in techs and research rate and would probably walk over me in a war, but I have many more cities than him, so I decide to call the warring a day and see if Im big enough to beat him to space. In fact my research is
awful, not helped by that at one point I was spending nearly 50gpt paying for unit maintenance! So I put my cities on max population growth, start building infrastructure, and sure enough, my GNP quickly rockets, rapidly overtaking Cyrus (its a lot longer before I catch up with him in actual techs learned, but I do manage to bag the Three Gorges Dam and the Space Elevator. At that point Im quite confident of victory).
One stroke of luck that helped me: At a time when Cyrus was still miles ahead of me in techs, he offered me a defensive pact. With Hatty pleased with me and Saladin and Izzy basically out of the game, that means I dont need to worry
at all about defence. On deity thats very nice. It means I dont need to waste any beakers researching any purely military techs, but can pick those up through trades. Im sure there was one point where Cyrus had tanks everywhere and my army was basically all my old praetorians and grenadiers! But it worked...
I also really wish 
