Hmmm, what has happened since 500BC? Well:
A second GP, the Great Library, and winning Music all in the same turn in 75BC. Nice date for all, the first GP was a scientist which built an academy in the future capital Snaketown (gold/corn/tons of green riverside/hills). Was unlucky to get two great engineers because of the 'mids, running rep I settled them both in the future capital. This may have been suboptimal, but there are no important wonders to build until oxford (we have stone, would be a waste of an GEnginerr) and no need for bulbing due to my ridiculous tech lead. Just a few turns later I get my third GP, a GScientist:
Who bulbs Philo in 100AD, giving me a monopoly on it and diverting the AIs away from Liberalism. It also allows me to switch into pacifism/buddhism (as well as caste system and bureaucracy during my golden age (from the Music GArtist), which I share with Gilgamesh who is the main threat to me. We share a long border and his on-again-off-again war with Charlemagne meant I was still a possible DoW target. Pacifism, as if Philosophical wasn't enough:
Pre-lib I have 8 GPs generated already, that's more than I've built of any unit including settlers
And with more on the way. But aside from GPs I'm also all about the cash-ola:
This is the importance of paying attention to your trade screen on Deity. That's 31gpt from extras and resources I'm not using like stone. Doubly important because it denies the AI that income, this works the same way on Immortal though to a lesser extent. Immortal AIs generally have less gpt to trade.
Fail gold from resource-boosted wonders. Also so, so important. I also got close to a couple hundred from the Parthenon, a handful from the MoM, and close to a hundred very early from the Great Wall as I showed in the last update.
Massive cash-for-tech trades. If you can get out to a tech lead you can basically take most of the money an AI gets from a Great Merchant trade mission if you get on it before the gold disappears. This is also also a powerful economic denial tactic.
This all becomes very relevant to my game as the need for a military breakout approaches. Even being philosophical the power of rep specialists will only carry you for so long. On Deity an AI with 12+ cities can begin to really pull away technologically in the industrial era, 6 beaker specialists will not keep up because they keep your population from expanding and get no multipliers.
In this game the issue is no Iron. I have horses but with such a significant early tech lead I don't want to wait for Cavalry. Good diplo got me all the way to friendly with Justinian, and he will trade me iron. For a couple health resources....and 119 gpt
Painful, but Gilgamesh has a source of iron near our borders that I could take in a handful of turns with cuirs, so I go for it. With a Taj Mahal-powered golden age I switch into Police State, slavery, and free religion and begin whipping. All cities have at least a granary, barracks, and forge, most also have stables. With the incredible amount of food on this map that equals an almost instant army. In 1120AD:
I take a second city and have my own Iron at last. Immediately:
Deal canceled. It cost me over 1500 gold but will now allow me to go for cannons, and I will have my first vassal who will be able to do a lot of teching on my behalf while I stomp Toku and his vassal, Zara. As if to personally make up for that huge sum leaving me empire every turn:
It's Wang to the rescue again! I'm very fortunate that I can make these trades without even incurring a "traded with our worst enemy" diplo modifier with anyone.
I'll take cities from Gilgamesh until he capitulates, then hit Toku and Zara. Probably Zara first because getting at Toku from my borders means going over a big section of hills. And Zara is utterly backward technologically from the long centuries of the Japanese beating up on them
By the time that's happening I will probably have rifling in and be producing Cavalry while I research steel (chemistry is already in).
This won't be my earliest Deity win date but it will probably be my second earliest.