Standard Communitas_79 Deity with Arabia (no ancient ruins). SV on 387.
Finally got my Tall victory in. After about 8 bad starts (I would get to medieval and get curbed stomped by the AI), I think I finally got the hang of how many units I need to build early to stay defensible on Deity. Its tricky just because you feel more pressure on deity and so you want to get your infrastructure up as soon as possible, but the AI does not mess around and will just snipe you.
In this game, my capital has very few hammers, so I went the left side of Tradition to get the engineer as quickly as possible. This meant I was forgoing early wonders (no culture = no wonders) in favor or quicker expansion and more infrastructure. With the power of bazzars and spirit of the desert I still managed to sneak in a religion. I stabilized and formed a defensive line against Siam with my camel archers. I had forests on the east to help against Venice, though Venice and I became best of friends and DP buddies for most of the game. Siam and I would have a war every so often, but Siam could never breach my defenses.
Unlike my last attempts at Tall, I was able to snag 6 cities by including a decent island to the south west that was very defensible. Ultimately I find 6 cities is really the sweet spot for Tradition, it gets you just enough extra gold, production, and supply to help you stay competitive against the big civs out there. While 5 cities is faster on science, culture, and tourism....its much more brittle, and if the AI gets nasty with you, I find you don't always have the tools to counter.
My goal was to use Order and go CV this game, as I was curious about its synergy with Arabia, who has always been a staunch freedom play from me.
I got Dictatorship of the Proletariat and cultural revolution as my tier 2 tenants, and watched the tourism fly! 4 other civs went order along with me, so I was racking up the tourism. But my rival was Greece with Freedom, but I still managed the 50% bonus for happiness over him, so I was still pushing good and hard.
One of the fun aspects of this game was how close all the civs were. All 8 civs were still in the game, and everyone was competitive on Techs. There were no real runaways in this game, everyone was in it in one form or another. It was also weird because not a single civ went Autocracy, so it was pure Freedom vs Order.
I got to Internet and then went for the musician push. I faith bought 4 musicians, and then used Hero of the People as my last tier 1 pick to gain an additional musician, plus a natural born muscician. I pounded Greece, and though I made a huge dent, I didn't think I would finish the gap faster enough, so I pivoted to SV.
Ultimately SV turned into an easy victory. Once again though I was the 3rd to get all of the SS part techs....I won with ease. No other civ had finished more than 1 part. I had several diplomats and thieves in their cities, and looking at them not a single city was building a SS part that I could see, so I don't know what the heck the AI was doing but it certainly wasn't trying to win
My notes:
1) Order is really good for CV, that 50% boost is amazing, and the other one gives you an extra +5 tourism to every great work which is no slouch. Combine that with the free musician for hero of the people if you time it right, and I'm starting to wonder if Order just doesn't flat out beat Freedom on tourism. On the other hand, my culture was ultimately "low" for a true CV, and I didn't not finish my second tier 3 tenant until I was almost done with my spaceship....so perhaps the extra culture from freedom balances it out.
2) I'm still not impressed by Spaceflight Pioneers. I had 9 manufactories, more than I can ever remember getting, and rushing a part in my 50 pop capital gave me ~2500 prod, basically 1-2 turn worth of part building for the capital. It just never seems that great compared to getting Great Leap Forward and just moving through the tree all the quicker.
3) Ultimately I think an CV was doable this game. We had the +33% GS, -33% writers a good portion of the game which slows down the culture play a bit. With a slower tech speed and faster culture I think CV might have been the preferred play.
4) So in general the AI was very "nice" to me this game in the WC. I had very few votes most of the game, not even enough to propose a policy. I always feared sanctions or travel ban was going to knock me down, but it never came. The AI seemed concerned with other civs and just left me be to do my work, which I guess since my score was near the bottom makes some sense.
5) I had Hexxon this game, and honestly I've been underestimating it, as its wonderful for Tall. The office bonus is okay for a Tall civ who often struggles for strategics, but the real gem is the 10% production per TR to a franchise city. My Capital exploded in production, and was a true carry the entire game, basically making everything I need.
6) Next game I plan to turn tech trading off. So right now Deity does feel too easy....while yes I did lose 8 times in a row that was really getting a feel for how to set up proper deity defenses. But so far once I've gotten past that part of the game I haven't lost once, and that does not seem right for someone who just got to Deity (and who has struggled on Immortal in the past). Perhaps tech trading is allowing me to rubber band more than I'm "supposed to", and so I'm staying competitive, though I am sure the other AIs are tech trading with each other so we will see if it really makes a big difference.
7) The HG to me is a nonviable wonder on Deity at the moment, unless I was playing Poland or something with ridiculous early culture (and maybe not even then). The AI beelines for that thing like no ones business. Though I often see it go in the early 60s turn wise, I have seen it go as fast as the early 50s (and that's without ancient ruins). So its too much of a gamble, honestly getting Roman Forum is a good wonder (using it to snag an early faith or culture ally is actually a big boost), and its much much easier to get. So if I'm going mathematics I never both even looking at the HG.
I would love to hear Deity vets experience there, is there a way to bag the HG, or is it basically a civ specific wonder now?