I haven’t had a chance to play on yet with my game. But interested in the other play throughs. Indeed deity is a different beast, I can only win with the easiest of starts so not going to try my luck here!
A question on this, however. Do I correctly interpret this as you saying that you’d expand to 9 cities? In a typical iso game I’d stick to 4-6. Do the Pyramids make it worth going bigger?
Indeed, Pyramids make it worth it.s New cities are net positive very soon. But I would put 3 new cities only when you can have the border pop with Caste system to capture that seafood, plus they can run rep scientists without libraries. With one good food, they get size 3 in small time and also net in the extra health resources which are a problem on this map. This is not an iso game, it is not too often a good idea to go beyond 6 cities in Iso before Astro.
Short answer is that every game is unique, but if you have good and abundant land, there is more opportunity to delay.
If you have a larger island (almost a continent of your own) that is green and lush with rivers, and if you in addition to that have the possibility for 2 offshore islands, then there is the question if beelining optics at all is best play.
If your island is crappy, it can be a situation of desperation, you _need_ to find someone to smash and take their stuff to have any chance of winning.
But regarding to this map:
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We are not in isolation, and circumstances dictate that optics/astro by necessity will be slow anyway (need to defend or befriend).
So it makes more sense to play a longer game and develop more.
Completely agree with @krikav. It is unlikely that in the game with Mansa Musa visible from T0 we will need to wait for a long time before contact and also it is difficult to have a competitive date on anything because you need to emphasize security over development for the first 100 turns on this map. I do feel that Cuir rushing the Monty is viable, I totally overdid my defense and with a bit sooner Alphabet and more GPP instead of Bowmen focus, it could have been possible because Monty is also not tech trading. I think many things work on this map as long as you can befriend Monty. If he does not get the Religion, though, I think it would be a nightmare ending when Monty gets the catapults. My personal preference is not losing the games even if that means that the finish date is slower. I prefer consistency. But you will see many Deity players here having totally different approaches and opinions and all doing fine, and @Fippy doing the best out of the active ones.
The war against Monty has felt a bit slow, that's just how it is with one-movers and many cities. He has put up more resistance than I hoped, mainly because he has better units now, in Crossbows, Maces and Pikes. He was 12 turns from CS when I lost view on him, so think somebody must have traded it with him (despite not liking him much). Plus, Castles are always annoying. Even so, we've grinded him down and he only has 3 cities left now. He has been willing to capitulate about two cities ago, but naturally I want him dead.
Oh yeah, and Saladin was in a bit of a bind a while ago.
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He's at peace with everybody again now, but lost Mecca to Bismarck, so that hurt a ton (with 3-4 wonders). I got bad diplo from the whole adventure, because I simply couldn't break off ties and lose 3 happies.
Mansa and the others are teching out of control, and are sitting on oodles of cash. At least they were. This is what happens when you get Rifling with money to burn
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Not a pleasant sight. I've got up Oxford (1280AD), yet Mansa has over twice the tech rate. He just got State Property a little while ago, so won't exactly slow down.
Here is an overview of the north. Monty is almost dead, but is putting up a good fight (the bas****). But we're getting there, and he won't be long for this world.
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Babylon is currently only size 13. It got whipped several times to try to get up Oxford quickly. Couldn't one-turn it, so whipped a Mace with max overflow and that pretty much got it over the line. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this blasted war ending!
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Quick geezers are at Emancipation too. Stupid AI
Maybe a little unusual, the AIs had been ignoring Chemistry (except Germany). Managed to get that this turn, and then traded it away to Mansa (he was almost there), Roosevelt and Willem. Got Printing Press, Banking, Music and Mansa's 530g for it. Pleased with that, as I haven't been able to trade anything for aaaages. They are way too fast, and are trading with each other. Same old deal. They all have exactly the same techs for trade. With Mansa running away as usual. He's lined up Steam Power.
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Bismarck has access to Cuirs because I've been giving him Horses (for 9g). Maybe I should drop that deal tbh, altho it's pretty lucrative. Mansa has Rifling, but not the others yet. I've lined up Steel, and can probably get there in 5 turns. This therefore feels like a crucial moment, if I am to be able to deal with the other continent. Am thinking about producing some more galleons, whipping out more trebs (to be upgraded ofc), and more units. Maybe knights as they're decent, plus some muskets. Rifling is pretty far away right now, so don't think I can wait that long. It may be possible to attack for example Saladin, get a foothold of sorts, and then try to deal with these other jokes. With some luck Mansa won't get involved.
That continent is totally nuts tbh. And in this game there even were some wars, yet they're all teching out of control (except Saladin, who is left behind), and building every wonder in the world (thank goodness we got the Mids). They simply like each other too much for there to be great conflict, despite the different religions (err, until Paya and Mids).
Definitely a difficult Immortal game. Deity is certainly much, much more difficult, but this is no walk in the park either.
But it sure took a while. Very fast continent and tech pace. 1400AD, Mansa could tech Assembly Line. 1430AD, Monty dies
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By this point I had just gotten access to Cannons, but don't think they saw action in the Monty war. Get out more boats and move the army to the east. Then invade. We're (almost) ready to land in 1500AD.
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Was too eager after taking that city, and left too few defenders while moving the stack further (and with more landing just behind the first lot). Saladin threw a horde of camel archers, war elephants and some trebs at us, and the city changed hands several times. The stack had to be pulled back, and then we wiped his main stack. Shortly after I had declared, Biscmark did too. They both had plotted for a little while, probably on each other. Bismarck was the military leader, with a huge stack of Grenadiers. I was glad to avoid it for the time being, and landed behind his back while he was busy smashing Saladin. I also bribed in Mansa against Bismarck. Don't think he did much, but he did bring a stack forward eventually.
In a previous German-Arab war, Bismarck had taken Mecca, before they signed a peace treaty. Almost perfect timing. Bismarck had a pretty big stack camped in the city, and it was in revolt Got there one turn too late, so the units weren't at half health, but still a very nice opportunity. Lost some cannons in the attack, but wiped his stack and took the city. It had MoM and HG (and Oracle). Always great to capture MoM.
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Here is the German stack assaulting Saladin. By the time he had bombed down culture, there were almost 30 units. Kept pouring over the border.
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We landed behind him with reinforcements, and took Frankfurt.
1575AD, and Mansa can tech Industrialism. Slow down, dude!!
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Almost forgot about Roosevelt. He was hidden away over in the corner -- except for this former barb city. We landed a pretty sizeable stack there, with Grens now, and I did not expect what happened.
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He had a large contingent in the city, but I did not expect him to throw everything he had at us, and do so darn well. The whole stack was practically wiped. Very frustrating to see so many half-dead enemies and not be able to do anything about it. Had no choice but slink back into the boats and escape
This was meant to be the last quick push, and the idea was to bribe Mansa in on Roosevelt. Opted against that in the end, because I didn't want to give him Military Science. But we did declare on Mansa shortly after, so two wars going. Needed to move the stack up from Willem first (he capped easily, but was far away), and I hoped this gave Bismarck time to invade Mali. Had to wait a few extra turns, but the Germans went on the offensive. By this point Mansa has access to Grenadiers and MGs, and ofc Airships. Oh, and Infantry. That was partly what the pause was about. I had to get the stack back up to Mecca, where it was possible to upgrade the Grens to Infantry. Marines and MGs aside, plus the horde of WEs that turned into Cavalry, it was an even-matched fight.
Here we are stood facing up before the show-down. Germany is there too, though he pretty much got totally wiped in between turns.
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At them, boys!
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Lost some good CR3 Cannons, but it was worth it. Also have some CR2 and CR3 Infantry, upgraded a few times from Maces, which definitely came in handy here.
Could have taken the city, but wanted to see what the other stack did, which is assaulting Baghdad. By coincidence I noticed in the diplo screen that Mansa was willing to capitulate. So then I shook his hand welcomed him into the tent. No need to waste units that can smash Yankee butts.
We were roughly a percentage short on domination after Mansa capped, so had to deal with Roosevelt too. Then Mecca went into revolt again, and we were down to a little over 60% (64% needed). This time it went fine, though, and the city where I lost a stack earlier was taken without too many issues. Not enough to cap him, maybe due to the slaughter earlier, so we moved over to the east. Thankfully Mansa had built some railroads, so it was fast (2 turns). Took two cities in one turn, and Roosevelt made Germany great again. Or some hogwash like that
Not nearly as many killed units as reported from the Deity game earlier, but almost exactly a 7:1 ratio of killed to lost. 343 killed and 53 lost. One per hour!
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The AP city was razed. There was a very ill-timed vote about war on Mansa, which I had to Defy. Thankfully it failed passing by 4 votes, but AP can be such a pain in the neck with crap like this. So my finger slipped.
One thing I quite liked here, that I may have to re-do later: Built a Drydock in the Moai city, then built a never-ending flotilla of Ships of the Line. With Flanking+Movement promotions, which meant they could travel together with the Galleons and Frigates.
Haven't had much time to play Civ recently, but played a few more turns last night. Decided in the end to go for Cuirassiers, if only to contrast with @Pangaea's game as we have been in lock step so far.
Took peace with Monty, and sent my army west to the barb city. I'm amazed it survived this long, but it seems Monty had tunnel vision in my direction! Saladin was being narrow minded around my religious beliefs so I decided to convert out of Hinduism to open up another trading partner.
Set my tech for music, it's pretty cheap and sistine hadn't been built yet so noone was trading, was hoping to pick up a few of the more expensive techs from Astro. Meanwhile I put one turn into Engineering to open up this trade:
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That was the first one, than I did Astro to Mansa for Education + gold (I had beakers in Education from earlier). Then set off for liberalism, in the hope that Mansa was researching something else, but without much hope!
Part way through I got excited as this happened
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Unbelievably I then won Lib at Turn 165, and picked Military Tradition. It seems that's what Mansa had been researching as well, unusual for him.
The same turn Mansa obliged with this trade, and I was ready to go!
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Final trade was Nationalism to Rosy for theology and banking, it turns out the switch out of hinduism was a waste of 2 turns as I didn't use Saladin at all. Now to revolt into war civics and build in army! I have some turns of peace left with Monty as he made a demand after our original treaty ended.
So overall only 12 turns to get to Cuirassiers, I was very surprised how quickly I got there. On one had, I was incredibly lucky with trades / lib, but also perhaps that's to be expected with Mansa and Willem.
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My personal preference is not losing the games even if that means that the finish date is slower. I prefer consistency. But you will see many Deity players here having totally different approaches and opinions and all doing fine, and 
