Renata: oh yeah make no mistake, if someone decides that they don't like our face about now, we're probably dead meat. That's exactly why I've been telling people not to settle on sites that overlap AI cities. If we don't do that, and we do pay all tribute demands, it's much less likely that the AI will decide it wants to smack us about.
Just keep concentrating on our economy, and hopefully at some point down the future we will be powerful enough to build a nice big military and guarantee our own national security. Even if we did concentrate on building military now, we couldn't build enough for our security to be assured, and we'd just fall behind economically anyhow. Indeed we are vulnerable at the moment, but being vulnerable is part of the territory on Deity.
Oh and btw guys, if anyone decides to march troops through our territory, that's fine, as long as they're not going for us. Whatever you do, don't demand they leave. They will declare war and we will die. Likewise, if anyone demands tribute, give it to them. No question. We are the nice friendly Americans who wouldn't hurt a fly and just want to leave in happiness and peace, got it? Whatever you do, just don't mention that we plan to roll over everyone else with tanks in a couple of thousand years
I've played Deity games where the AI marched half a dozen cavalry past my capital which was defended by a lone spearman - and come out of the game with a win. See Epic 4 on my homepage, or RBE1, in which our premier military unit was a longbowman, as in ONE longbowman, while the other civs were going at it with each other with huge armies of knights. We won that one, by Domination, using modern armor.
Hope that clears some things up. Let's sit tight, be nice to everyone - especially Osman and Ieyasu - and hope we come up with a win.
Oh and btw, I haven't had a chance to look at the save, so I can't really make comments on micromanagement/build orders, etc. It's in Borealis' capable hands
-Sirp.