Kael,
Many thx for such a glorious game. I decided to play a regular game until the scenario patch-storm dies down (after completing the Momus - love the updated map), and got one of my best ones ever (been playing since the original Civ).
Tried out the Golem-builders for the first time, Epic Standard Erebus, double everything, progressive difficulty. Started in the bottom right corner with nearly all plains hills and few food bonuses, good for one and a half middling cities. Nice one-tile choke, but not enough behind the choke to live on, so I nearly restarted. Cleared a spider to grab a grass river hill half city past the choke before the Vampires grabbed all the available land close by as the game was fast heading toward Deity.
So again nearly restarted when Tasunke declares on the Vamps and I join in, barely grabbing another half city with Barnaxus. Meanwhile Tasunke is cleaning up in record time, and I'm barely able to beat him to the last Vamp city, at the head of a nice grass hill river valley that gives me my first three legit cities. Still landlocked, still way behind, as the game hits Deity. The second, and last, war sees me grab Innsmouth, knocking out a peculiarly weak Hannah all the way at the other side of Tasunke's empire, then get a defensive pact with Varn to preclude Tasunke swallowing me in one bite.
I now have a coastal city, proceed to discover three isolated continents (Erebus is great at this - inland sea with mountain ranges making significant parts of the map only accessible thereby), wresting them from their barb occupants (barb assassins!), and ride their eventual productive/economic power to victory. Lots of diplomatic/exploration challenges along the way, as I eventually buy the Tower (its way too cheap) without ever getting a vassal (had to build all the nodes plus 4 holy city wonders), and dodging the outlawing of the mana necessary to get the Necro Tower built, blight that beat a best-ever Genesis by ten turns, etc...
All in all an incredible game.
A couple thoughts:
The AI really doesn't have a late game win, at least without Hall of Kings, which I was careful to nab. It can beat you, especially before you get started, but it can't win other than time in the long run. I'll have to try selecting the new Illians to see how they do.
Early game events are crippling the AI. I watched the replay, and meteors/miracle herbalist cures/volcanoes turned three civs into basket cases well into the 300th turn. All three had nice continents to settle.