After several losses, I've achieved what I think is my first win as the Iroquois on this patch + difficulty
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The early-game was challenging (particularly founding), but the mid-game was very strong! In the late-game, the AI caught up a great deal and I won with a science victory but I think it was fairly close. I had very little iron in this game, which made my UU - the Mohawk Warrior, which doesn't require iron - shine. My UB was also a lot of fun, the Longhouse making a jungle start actually very strong. I was lucky in that I had room to expand and also a number of city-states nearby. On the other hand, several of the AI also did pretty well - Sweden, Brazil, Babylon, Indonesia, and the Inca.
This was a very interesting game in that the civs in top position moved around a lot. Arabia did well to being with intially, but fell prey to Swedish expansionism and lost their capital and holy city. Brazil was leading in tech and wonders, although I managed to overtake them partly thanks to the Sistene Chapel and the Porcelain tower. I took a couple of German cities, and my neighbours Babylon attacked them while they were weak and took several cities including their capital. They also conquered two Venitian cities, jumping into a position of power. Indonesia tag-teamed with Sweden, first vassalising and then later conquering Arabia. I was lucky in that most of the leaders at this point had gone Statecraft or Fealty so I was able to build the Louvre uncontested and my lead in archeology payed off greatly. I also invested very heavily in keeping Carthage and Byzantium alive - up to 1000 gpt in the late-game to Byzantium because in an attempt to prevent any one military power from becoming overwhelming. Babylon at this point has shot in tech and started building a lot of wonders. Lastly, the Inca expanded into German, Japanese, and Byzantian territory creating a respectable military empire of their own. End-game, I switched from GPTIs to instant yields and chained several great Scientists and Writers, as well as a Great Artist and Merchant to beat Babylon to a science victory!
I think Venice, Germany, Byzantium, and Carthage would have done better if not for the difficulty in defending your religious territory. For Byzantium in particular, religion is a big part of their kit but they weren't able to benefit from it in the mid-late game because there was so much pressure from other founders neaby - particularly Arabia/Sweden and The Inca. That said, Indonesia and Brazil both did pretty well without founding - I think my experiences in recent games suggests that winning as a non-founder is very much viable. Whereas in the past I remember the top spots almost always went to those with religions.
I also experienced a couple of bugs. I don't have the energy to make reports on Githb at the moment sorry, but I thought I'd mention them briefly here. Firstly, unit movement: I moved an ironclad into an area of fog of war that turned out to contain the Incan navy. My unit was on top of one of their units but unable to move into any of the adjacent spaces. And I couldn't end my turn until I resolved the stacked unit. So I ended up gifting the unit to the city-state so that I could continue the game.
Secondly, in diplomacy I was offered a preace treaty deal value of 'Impossible' by the Germans. They were ready to accept the impossible it seems, after loosing two cities to me lol. I changed the deal they offered before agreeing, but I think it still had 'Impossible' as the deal value for them.
