New to playing Civ 5 on actual difficulties, and I screwed here?

[nephrahim]

First off, I hope it isn't too much to impose on people to check out my game. It's only on KING, but I've recently been trying Civ on higher difficulties (I used to play IV on Emperor but that was years ago.) and I can't decide if this situation is just impossible, or if I'm just being bad.

I'm going for a diplomatic victory (Or was, anyway) except Rome has thrown a wrench in everything by being, well, godlike. I managed to push him off my continent a few years ago, but his tech lead is weighing down on me heavily (He's had flight for at least 70 turns, and I'm not even near that yet.)

Obviously everyone else on the world is manageable, although I'm worried Montezuma will attack me and basically end the game by forcing me to defend on two fronts.

It's my first time dealing with a runaway civ, and it's hard for me to see myself overcoming his tech and production leads. MAYBE I could keep defending, but I don't know if I can defend against him and everyone else in the world.

 

[raatmarien]

I started from your save file and am now playing it. A few general comments on your strategy:
Turn 427 and you still haven't finished the national college? You should really try to build the national college asap.
Why did you trade to go to war with Ethiopia? You are going for a diplo win and he has all the city states. If that's because of your defensive pacts than you should really do less defensive pacts.
Why did you just directly beeline to globalization? It's way to far away. You should choose the techs to research more carefully.
You aren't working many specialist, you should start working scientist as soon as possible.
You shouldn't have put your spy in Rome, it's way to slow there and he probably has his own spy there to.
Overall, I think you should have focused way more on tech from the beginning.