He is not bad player. I know him before. He is just frustrated from recent defeat on deity. He got defeat from island map recently, and maybe another time. Big deal. It is a game, can happen to experienced players to lose. Sometimes is bad luck and can be frustrating survive against all odds. I lost one game a week ago. So what ?
When his mind clear from frustration after some time, I am sure he will view vassal-monger strategy in better light than today.
He didn't lose that game. Your strategy is solid, it's just the way you go about it is weird imo...I think it's better to fight early on and get an experienced army...it's actually kind of difficult to war an AI that went unchecked early and your plan of making 4 desert cities...what? However I do think your strategy of keeping vassals as strong as possible is interesting, though, it's just kind of hard to do in practice. Building Castles/Armories ASAP is a good idea if going Fealty, I agree.
Anyway...
@Minh Le I lose/rage quit more than half of my Deity games so I'm not fully qualified to give advice, but I'll try anyway. In my experience, early Classical wonders go on turn 70-80 usually, so you'd get one or maybe two of them, and you need to really beeline it.
During a war, it's rare to conquer a city before the AI purchases or builds a new unit, so checking the enemy's gold reserves is a good idea. Early often I usually expect a Warrior or Archer to pop up out of thin air while I'm sieging a city.
I'm pretty sure you know this already, but everything on Standard takes 1/3 less time than on Epic, so keeping that ratio in mind can help. Turn 80 on Standard is Turn 120 on Epic. Religions usually go Turn 80-90+ in my experience.
It's not uncommon to be losing a war, tech to Knights and build a few, and then turn it around. AI is capable of this too. Tech changes during war is something less common on Epic I assume.
I like both warmongering and peaceful play and I don't think the two are too unbalanced against each other. Warmongering is a more standard approach imo though because peaceful play can really come back to bite you (too many times I am playing Progress and I have great yields but then I get invaded and it falls apart). I often need Authority's hammers just to survive in good shape. If you have difficulty with peaceful play I would probably go for a more war-heavy strategy.
