I have never tried an Earth game (or any game) on Deity. One thing to clarify: Are you talking about the Earth 18 scenario on Deity or are you modifying the start to give AI and Barbs their starting tech?
South America also has a couple of choke points to break in. I am thinking western Chile. There are one or two city spots and only one way across the mountains.
I just assumed Mali had the worst start.
Mali, Japan and Egypt have the worst starts.
Several civs also look like their starts are bad (India, Greece) or very bad (Inca, Arabia) but their land/tech situations don't account for the fact you can easily kill your neighbors for a free shot at much better land, or in Inca's case, be left alone for 2/3rds of the entire game with a full continent to settle uncontested until Astro. Greece is actually one of the strongest civs on this map due to his specific trait combo that lets him kill neighbors with AGG warriors and rush up the Lib or SciMeth (for Communism) paths to still forge ahead in tech pace without lots of friendly partners.
Mali is choked for land in general if you don't kill Hatty early due to crap production and jungle everywhere nearby, especially brutal for AGG Barbs settings. Settling the Northern coast will put you in border wars with Izzy and Caesar, and Hatty will probably beat you here anyway. He even has less FPs than Egypt to help carry his expansion into the somewhat usable spots that aren't already taken by her.
Japan's two choices, due to powerful highly expansive neighbors and a semi-isolated island start, are GLH + island spam to the South before China/India/Persia/Arabia can get there, or kill Qin ASAP which is quite the tall order when he techs Archery very quickly (AH resources mean Hunting is teched fast and AI proclivity for Archery anyway) and is PRO. Then you still have to deal with one of the most aggressive warmongers in the game with Horses in his capitol that WILL tech AH and contests you for the immediately usable land to the North, and India snapping up everything else to the South because the AI doesn't give a **** about settling useless jungle cities in Indochina as fast as (non?)humanly possible.
Hatty just lacks hammers and runs into the same problem with Africa being largely poor land until after Iron Working. You benefit very greatly from taking a hammer rich spot like Arabia's capitol or just running over the entire middle east with War Chariots before turning back on Mansa. If you don't do this, you're stuck in the same boat as Mansa, WITH Mansa, closed off in Africa contesting jungled land with him while the rest of the Old World develops. And Arabia usually takes the primo East coastal locations if you aren't quick/don't kill him. Getting shut down and staying in Africa really throttles your tech rate, though you will do better than Mansa (if you're foolish enough to leave him alive). It may take a Cav, Artillery, or even Tank push to bust out depending on the tech speed/trading going on (leaving Arabia alive further complicates things as he advances the world military tech much more rapidly, with Military flavor and lots of friends to trade it away to!)
Due to Hatty's traits and so much land to eventually use, an Egypt game isn't HARD, but you are significantly weaker than most of the Old World civs (weaker than if you were playing them instead, I mean) if you don't succeed in a War Chariot campaign and unlike in the New World, you have to deal with the politics of the other power players on the map (Qin, Cathy) and you are delayed compared to a European/Asian civ.
Any of the 3 American civs are easy mode, but fairly boring (IMO) on this map. You just sit and develop all game (after wiping out your corresponding partner if Rosie/Monty) while uninvolved with the old world, making for simple (but later) Space or Modern War games. Astro is not even a huge priority since you have so much land to use for yourself (I was pushing 1600+ beakers in my last Inca game by the time I traded for it), though I have found that GLH for Inca is a huge boon just like Japan, and he's also one of the best candidates for a shot at Colossus.
England with her crazy traits and powerful island is much more interesting of the semi-isolated civs as you have a very viable option to either sit semi-isolated and get a huge tech lead/culture victory, meddle about on the continent by taking Scandinavia (and usually killing Louis to alleviate headaches) until you take the world in a non-stop military campaign, or just race to the New World and set up the still-virgin South America as your mega-colony.
Rushing Monty is *sort of* doable with HC. It requires Marathon pace, no barbs, and “no city razing”. Even then, it seems like it’s just not worth it. You’ll get ahead of him and he’ll be a relatively easy conquer with cannons and rifles at around the same time as the Old World has them.
About as doable as killing Qin with Japan, yeah. You need to stack the deck or get lucky on Immortal+.... AGG warriors, guaranteed monument-granted cultural defenses, lots of unit spam, immediate path to Archery, and he gets Copper or Iron guaranteed if you take too long due to that spot in the Rockies... The major issue is that while North America is better land than the jungle infested South America, Monty can't get to you anyway and will always target Rosie before you, so there's very little reason to interact with him beyond what little trade you can get. He's not a major world player at any point and by the time he can actually threaten you (Astronomy) you can easily be 2 eras ahead of him in tech just through settling out South America.
. If you're feeling particularly brave try out Inca. You have the pleasure of starting boxed in by the Andes, while Monty takes over north america and 15 other civs go trade happy with each other in the old world.
