The Heroic Chu-Ko-Nu Rush Strategy

[snarzberry]

The Heroic Epic + Chu-Ko-Nu Rush

This is a really fun way to play a game and is a strategy that works on any difficulty level. Be warned, however, that using this method on difficulty levels lower than Emperor will result in you cutting through AI cities like a green dragon-sword through hot butter, wreaking serious bloody carnage and it will not, I repeat, will not be pretty.

The aim of this strategy is to rush buy a deadly, highly promoted, city-taking army of Chu-Ko-Nu's (CKN) very early in the game and to use it to take out as many other Civs as possible.

If you're playing Continents then your goal will be to annihilate all Civs that share your landmass by about turn 150. For Pangaea the goal will be to secure a lions share of the land for yourself, or just keep rolling on to a domination win. That is true for every level up to and including Immortal, for Deity your initial goals are somewhat more modest, perhaps taking out one Civ entirely and crippling another and then continuing the onslaught after upgrades. However, it is possible to clear a smallish continent of yourself and 2 other Civs using this strategy on Deity.

Rather than being a guide that takes you from opening to endgame this will show you how to play the first 150 or so turns of the game and end up in a powerful winning position. In fact after the first 150 turns it's possible to find that from there you're able to win by whichever condition you choose.

I'll also go into the tactics of how to use your mainly CKN army, along with it's composition which includes my favourite unit in civ 5 (and this will probably come as quite a shock). So, I hope you enjoy!


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From here I will assume that you are on a Continents or Pangaea map with 2 or more other Civs on your landmass. Once you understand the goal of the strategy you'll be able to adjust to having only one neighbour. It'll start out slower but that will be compensated by the fact that you only have one Civ to take out to secure your continent. Also, the guide is based on Standard speed/settings.

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The Opening

Spoiler :

In this game we'll use a National College start. After founding your city set to build a scout and research Pottery. Explore with your warrior and scout looking for ruins, city-states and the location of the other Civs. Next build a Monument, followed by a Granary.

In order to execute this opening we'll be taking the Social Policies (SP) in the Liberty tree Citizenship and Meritocracy which give a free worker followed by a free Great Person of your choosing. If you find a ruin that gives a bonus 30 then use your first choice to open the Tradition tree, if you don't then just take your first three policies in Liberty.

This will get you a worker between turns 20 and 30 approximately. If you are going to get the worker early, ie you found a ruin, then for your second tech/s research whatever is required to unlock the improvements of your local luxury resource, followed by Writing. If the worker isn't going to pop early then vice-versa.

When the luxury tile is improved sell the resource to an AI and use 380 to rush buy a Paper Maker in your capital. Even if you're playing Prince/King it is still highly likely that you can get this money together at this stage from city-states, open-borders, ruins and your resource. It doesn't matter if you can't get 300 for your resource, just get as close enough as possible. On Immortal/Deity every counts so extract every possible piece of income via open borders and such as it will come in to play later. No throwing money at city-states!

Set to build the National College on production focus immediately once you've bought the Money Maker, I mean Paper Maker. In between building the Granary and the National College you will have a few turns up your sleeve, use the time to build an additional scout and after that sink some turns into a wonder to get the fail later on. In 20 or so turns becomes very important, every penny will count.

The National College should be built sometime in the 40's depending on the particulars of your starting position.

Great Person and Research Agreements(RA)

Spoiler :

After Writing is complete tech Philosophy. Sell all of your resources to the AI. It is inconsequential that it's not possible to get top dollar on lower levels for your resources, just get the best reasonable price that you can. On lower levels you will have a far wider window in which to use your bad-ass CKN army so it doesn't really matter if you can't scrape enough coin together to pull off all of the rush buying that will follow.

When Philosophy is complete tech Animal Husbandry -Trapping. Around this time will be when you select the SP Meritocracy for a free GP. If the Great Library hasn't been built yet then select a Great Engineer and use him to rush build the GL. If it's gone then take a Great Scientist. For your free tech choose Civil Service.

You now have the ability to enter into RA's. For this strategy you require only two. The target techs for these RA's are Engineering and Machinery which you'll get on turn 80. Enter into two RA's on turn 50. You'll be able to enter into RA's a bit earlier than this, but don't as you'll need the extra time to complete what's next.

The Super Barracks and Tech Blocking

Spoiler :

After Philosophy beeline at the bottom of the tech tree for Iron Working. When you complete Bronze Working set to build a Barracks in your capital. When you complete Iron Working build the Heroic Epic and an Armory. This set up gives your new units the Morale promotion and 30exp points out of the gate which is +15% Combat and two promotions.

Once the Barracks/Epic/Armory are built if you have time to squeeze in building an archer or two, then do so. Upgrading them to CKN's on turn 80 will save you time and money.

After Iron Working tech to Mathematics and then to Construction. This has opened the path to the target techs. The one other tech you want at this stage is Horseback Riding. Block the other tech paths to guide the RA's into Engineering-Machinery. This can be a very tight squeeze especially if you had Calendar resources and is one reason I recommend turn 50 to sign the RA's.

Money, Money, Money

Spoiler :

The other reason is money. During the time between turn 50 and 80 your goal is to accumulate as much money as you possibly can. The magic number is 2080 . It can be done. How much you manage will vary from game to game. Income from your resources is the biggest variable (not counting El Dorado). If you have 3 - 4 resource tiles and are on a well populated continent, you're laughing. If you only have 2 resource tiles then it'll be slower, luck of the draw.

If there are only two AI's on your island (or if you're playing on Prince) then you likely won't be able to put together enough money to rush buy your entire army, but the trade off is that you only have to knock out 2 civs instead of 3-4 (or you'll be able to use the CKN's effectively for a LOT longer), so the delay is acceptable. If you have to hard-build part of your army then so be it.

Your Army

Spoiler :

This is the Army that you will assemble and before which many cities will fall. You want 4 CKN's. Rush buy them all if you can. Rush bought units still get all applicable promotions. They'll get two each to go with their Morale. Give two the barrage promotion and two the accuracy promotion, unless the map dictates otherwise. For the second promotion give them all Siege. These 4 CKN's are the main assault force of your army. They'll be supported by a Great General (Chinese GG's are more effective, giving a 35% bonus) when one is born after hostilities commence. They will also be supported by one additional unit.

Now I'd like to introduce to you my favourite unit in Civ 5. Guessed it yet? Yes that's right it's the Horseman. They've been getting a bad rap lately since being nerfed from instant offensive game winners but I want to show you how awesome this unit can be in a mixed force army. I hope you will come to enjoy using them as much as I do. The reason it's so good, and fun, is how many roles it fills. This Horseman is just going to do it all for you. He's your scout, your medic and your city taker. Yes, yes even though Horseman receive a penalty attacking cities this one won't mind as he'll only be attacking cites from long distance which have been reduced to health 1 by a barrage of crossbow bolts.

If your starting location doesn't make a horse tile available to you then you'll need to trade for it from one of the other Civs. You only need 1 horse and the price is usually 45. This hardly ever presents a stumbling block on Pangaea or a well populated continent but could cause a problem on a 2 or 3 Civ Continent. In that case I would substitute the Horseman for a Pikeman for the initial attack, I would then be looking to pick up horses in my first attack on another Civ. When the Horseman is built/rush bought give him the shock and medic promotions. Note that it's sometimes possible to build the Horseman before the RA's come in on turn 80. I'll talk about how to use your medic Horseman in the tactics section.

Timing for Immortal and Deity

Spoiler :

You gain the ability to field CKN's on turn 80. I cannot stress to you how important every turn is. Do anything that you can, bring your economy to it's knees, take it perilously close to going under in order to put together the scratch to get this army into the field ASAP. 5 turns is a lifetime. If you're not attacking by turn 90 on Deity I think you'll struggle to take out more than one Civ. This can still leave you in a decent position.

Once you start knocking down cities you'll be amazed in how few turns you just roll through the first couple of AI's. But you only have the time until knights and gunpowder units show up during which you are truly dominant. You're going to be looking to get the most out of your army of CKN's till about turn 120-130 on high difficulty levels, for much longer on lower levels, after this they will start to run into trouble.

Experienced players will realize the possibility of organizing additional RA's or GS's in order to tech quickly through to rifling, upgrade and let the onslaught continue. I won't go into that in this guide in detail but I usually sign another RA to get Astronomy around turn 110, annex one coastal city if I need to and get a caravel out to meet more RA partners. In my experience something along these lines is necessary in order to take out more than two Civs on Deity level.

National Treasury

Spoiler :

Your economy will usually (always) be severely strained in order to make this happen. You'll be just keeping your head above water at this point. To fund this enterprise and pay for this war machine next finish the blocked tech Currency and build Market-National Treasury in the capital.

Targets

Spoiler :

Selecting a target Civ, or deciding on the order in which you'll take them out, is something that you should be thinking about from the moment you meet your first Civ. I'm not going to go into detail about everything that could be mentioned but some things to consider are -

Map Location. You're looking to achieve your goals in the shortest time possible. If this means you can move through in a nice arc through the continent laying everyone to waste then that is good. You're not leaving much of a rear-guard so it's preferable to not have an unmet threat between your army and your capital. If you're a Deity player your hand is often forced as you're being engulfed by your nearest rival, that's ok all those cities will soon be yours, but there is still sometimes room for decision making. On the other levels you usually have a couple of viable options.

Luxury Resources. Happiness is one of the things that can bring your assault to a grinding halt. So selecting Civs and cities that give you new luxury resources is wise.

Wonders. If one of the Civs on your map has built a key wonder it's a reason to go after them early. Prize wonders are nice pick ups but I'm really talking about military wonders like The Great Wall and (later) Himeji Castle. If a Civ near you builds TGW consider an early decapitation attack on their capital to take it off them.

Terrain. This is very important. If one Civ is located in particularly difficult terrain, lots of mountains, rivers and forests consider shooting for this Civ first. You'd rather tackle this challenge against warriors and archers than swordsmen and pikemen.

Tactics

Spoiler :

Your army will dominate the early battlefield and will work together to quickly move from city to city. When you are observing a city, say when scouting early or any other time you have the chance to check out your neighbours land, inspect the terrain and look for directions you can approach from and key tiles on which your CKN's can attack from. Look for positions from which your Horseman can rush from 3 tiles away to take the city. Knowledge of the tile line of sight and movement cost rules is essential. If you don't know these rules then playing this way will help you learn in no time as you'll be keenly aware of the tactical nature of your armies surroundings at all times.

Use your Horseman's extra mobility to scout for possible danger as you advance your army. Your CKN's are very strong attacking from distance but are weak at melee combat. You do not want to move your CKN onto a hill or something only to discover that he's two tiles away from a swordsmen and will get attacked next turn. You do not want to lose a CKN, ever. Not so long as your main attack lasts anyway. As your army moves the defensive information that you can glean from your Horseman is priceless. Use the 4 movement points wisely.

When you approach a city try to move, on the same move, all four CKN's onto their key tiles from which they will shoot, use any extra movement points to get a shot in now. Your Great General should be on a tile behind, or along with a CKN, so that he is not more than two tiles from any of your units. If he is then you can move him mid attack to get the bonus on all your shots. Once they are set up, they'll take a hit or two from the enemy, and then they let 'em have it. Double attacks plus all the bonuses they'll be receiving really is kinda nasty.

Your medic Horesman should also be behind the CKN's three tiles from the city and with an appropriate path which doesn't cost more than 4 movement points. Consider using the Horseman's mobility to range around while the CKN's are attacking to come in from a better angle if it means he won't have to cross rivers or be penalized some other way when he takes the city.

Reduce the cities defences to the minimum before attacking with your Horsemen who should come in from distance and take the city in one move. Attacking when there is one or two hit points left above the minimum in the city is a huge risk. Your Horseman will take a lot of damage attacking and if the city still stands it will be range attacked on the AI's turn. If you lose your Horseman far away from your capital, you're in trouble. Just batter down the defences and then swoop in with the horse from distance.

Your CKN's will take a few hits. That's okay, they can handle it, and it all goes into more promotions. Each time you take a city one of your CKN's will be badly damaged, normally to somewhere around half health. And your medic Horseman will also usually be badly damaged from the final attack on the city itself. However the situation is not bad at all as the Horseman is in one of your cities and will heal at 3 per turn even while the city razes or is in revolt. Move your damaged CKN on to a tile next to the city and in the direction of your next target city. Now your CKN is in friendly lands and is next to a medic - he heals 3 per turn as well! As you gain new promotions I think Cover and Cover2 are the best initial ones to take.

The other CKN's and the GG should not delay and should continue immediately with the assault on the next city. Especially early in your attack, 3 CKN's are plenty to reduce a cities defences and the Horseman can catch up quickly, just in time to take the city and start healing the new damaged CKN.

Then just keep rolling, rolling, rolling.

This brings me to the end of the CKN Rush guide. With this army forge a vast puppet empire by attacking everyone around you. After you have taken out, or severely incapacitated, the other civs on your island or in your vicinity you're free to play the rest of the game how you like. You are now hopefully in a dominating position.

On lower levels you can keep on attacking and clean up the entire map, on higher levels your initial attack should have won you enough assets for you to leverage into a win.

Do you want to settle the remaining city sites while building up a massive economy and production base and powering home for a Science victory or focusing your empire on gold and winning by Diplomacy? Totally do-able. Culture is still on the cards as you likely only have your Capital and one additional if you needed to annex a coastal city. Keep using your army with upgrades and you could even win by Domination.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the guide and have fun with your Horsemen and the early Chu-Ko-Nu's!

Snarzberry...

 

[blac]

I love Chu-Ko-nu's. They are one of the best UU in the game imo. So powerful when they have the +25% to cities damage. Great guide!!

 

[Raiki]

Very very nice. I haven't played very much as china yet, as I'm generally not much of a warmonger, but this sounds like too much fun to pass up. I think I may have to push my Indian/Siamese death by elephant team match back a game.


~R~

 

[Tabarnak]

Great guide! I wonder if it's possible to attack 2 civs or more at the same time with 2 or 3 armies of CKN from archers upgrade from multiple settled cities. Surely not that fast though. On Deity you need to stuck at 1 city imo.

But it's tougher to use and keep ranged units in multiplayer games. Still very nice against AIs.

 

[elijahtary]

Very nice guide, looks similar to a rifle-rush strategy, but using China's earlier UU to their complete advantage.

I wonder if this is a feasible OCC strat for larger maps (with razing cities, obivously). Otherwise, if you're raking in the money, you don't need to worry about building happiness buildings, since you can rush-buy them and your puppets should build them, as well...

 

[snarzberry]

I love Chu-Ko-nu's. They are one of the best UU in the game imo. So powerful when they have the +25% to cities damage. Great guide!!

Thanks! Until recently I had barely played as China but decided to give them a try and had some of the funnest games of civ 5 I've had yet. The ChuKoNu's are a lot of fun to use and now I know why other players were saying that they're so deadly.

 

[snarzberry]

Great guide! I wonder if it's possible to attack 2 civs or more at the same time with 2 or 3 armies of CKN from archers upgrade from multiple settled cities. Surely not that fast though. On Deity you need to stuck at 1 city imo.

But it's tougher to use and keep ranged units in multiplayer games. Still very nice against AIs.

Cheers, hey you're in Quebec. I was going to be traveling there in a few weeks to visit a friend (I've been living in Vancouver for the past 6 months or so) but unfortunately I have to leave to go back to Australia for personal reasons. So sad, had heard lots of good things about the place!

I think the 2 or 3 armies would work on middle level difficulty, as you say. It would be brutal. But on deity and maybe eve imm by the time you get it set up it'll be well after turn 100 I'd guess so your window is closing fast and you're likely to be facing knights and musketmen which are the harbingers of the end of the CKN era.

 

[Beef Hammer]

Too bad it relies on tech blocking, which i refuse to use.

 

[snarzberry]

Too bad it relies on tech blocking, which i refuse to use.

Fair enough. Hey, it's only two techs! If this is bothers you then I'd hate to show you some of my other games, they would make you more than cringe!

Also the RA's are probably unnecessary except on maybe the top three levels where they are indispensable. On Prince I imagine you could get up the NC early and just beeline for it and it would still work, I haven't tried this though. Getting such a strong army into the field early isn't going to hurt your chances if you make the most of it.

 

[slobberinbear]

Thank you for posting this. I gave it a whirl on King and it's pretty impressive. Funny thing is it was harder to get gold; the AI just didn't make it fast enough. Also, one of my luxuries (sugar) was on a marsh tile, so I had to get Masonry sooner than in your write up.

Also, i was delayed somewhat due to a misfire on an RA ... I accidentally popped Chivalry. Bad news, CKNs delayed. Good news ... I had a knight medic instead of a Horseman

The great general game incredibly soon ... towards the end of the first city attack.

I really appreciate the concrete illustration of the National College start and the benefit of getting rid of your luxuries for cash. I have always played an expansionist game where I need all of my happiness ... the OCC tech rush to military is new for me. I presume you could do something analogous with Janissaries, Minutemen, Samurai, etc. I guess it would actually be easier with Samurai, as you could upgrade warriors to swords to samurai.

 

[Michl2602]

Many thanks for that.

A good guide that makes an interesting read and has many elements in it, someone can try to add to it's own strategy. I'm really happy to have found this forum.

Reading here just leads to much more fun in the own entire games.

Thanks to all for being here!

 

[RedRover57]

I tried the strategy on Immortal and had a near perfect start, but couldn't get everything done by turn 80. I even got lucky and found a culture ruin, plus my scout was able to take out a weakened barb camp with a captured worker that got me friendly with 2 cultural civs at the same time. This allowed me to take Tradition, Liberty, Citizenship, Meritocracy and Piety all by turn 70ish. But, my Heroic Epic wasn't built until turn 82 and more importantly I was not able to block all 3 of the big techs (Theology, Currency and Metal Casting) by turn 80 - I missed it by about 5-6 turns. So taking the RA's on turn 50 is a real gamble. My start was mostly grassland/river with 2 wines and one furs, plus 2 cows and one 2-horse tile within my cultural borders (having horses close is another key aspect of this strategy). I think I would have needed a heavier production start (hills, plains, mining luxuries, etc.) to get the NC done quicker in order to make it by turn 80. As it was I ran production focus almost the whole time. I would suggest waiting until turn 55 or so to take the RA's unless you have a high production site.

I must say though that I like how quickly you burn through the tech with this start. Your capitol gets strong fast. It's good for when you are somewhat isolated and don't need to grab up close luxuries that fast. I like the early granary which allows you to switch to production and still grow.

 

[Usuno]

Can Cho ko nu get the Logistics double attack promotion as well? Or do they not stack? I might wanna try out China just to see crossbows firing 3x and killing anything in sight. x2 fun if it was upgraded from a scout.

 

[snarzberry]

Thank you for posting this. I gave it a whirl on King and it's pretty impressive. Funny thing is it was harder to get gold; the AI just didn't make it fast enough. Also, one of my luxuries (sugar) was on a marsh tile, so I had to get Masonry sooner than in your write up.

Also, i was delayed somewhat due to a misfire on an RA ... I accidentally popped Chivalry. Bad news, CKNs delayed. Good news ... I had a knight medic instead of a Horseman

The great general game incredibly soon ... towards the end of the first city attack.

I really appreciate the concrete illustration of the National College start and the benefit of getting rid of your luxuries for cash. I have always played an expansionist game where I need all of my happiness ... the OCC tech rush to military is new for me. I presume you could do something analogous with Janissaries, Minutemen, Samurai, etc. I guess it would actually be easier with Samurai, as you could upgrade warriors to swords to samurai.

Yeah, there are some combination of luxuries that are better than others for this strategy. The best possible start would be something like two gold, two silver and as a rule calendar resources slow you down, especially if it was in marsh as yours was (reload). Calendar slows you down as it opens the expensive Theology tech which has to be blocked.

Two different mining resources in four copies is the best possible as you're teching that way anyway and can now block calendar instead of Theology. I was going to explain all this in the guide, explaining that the different type of resources you have add or subtract a few turns from when you should sign the RA's, but I just gave the pretty safe estimate of turn 50. This seems to be the problem you ran into and is why you didn't have time to block for the RA's. Give it a try and again and see how you go with better resources.

 

[snarzberry]

I tried the strategy on Immortal and had a near perfect start, but couldn't get everything done by turn 80. I even got lucky and found a culture ruin, plus my scout was able to take out a weakened barb camp with a captured worker that got me friendly with 2 cultural civs at the same time. This allowed me to take Tradition, Liberty, Citizenship, Meritocracy and Piety all by turn 70ish. But, my Heroic Epic wasn't built until turn 82 and more importantly I was not able to block all 3 of the big techs (Theology, Currency and Metal Casting) by turn 80 - I missed it by about 5-6 turns. So taking the RA's on turn 50 is a real gamble. My start was mostly grassland/river with 2 wines and one furs, plus 2 cows and one 2-horse tile within my cultural borders (having horses close is another key aspect of this strategy). I think I would have needed a heavier production start (hills, plains, mining luxuries, etc.) to get the NC done quicker in order to make it by turn 80. As it was I ran production focus almost the whole time. I would suggest waiting until turn 55 or so to take the RA's unless you have a high production site.

I must say though that I like how quickly you burn through the tech with this start. Your capitol gets strong fast. It's good for when you are somewhat isolated and don't need to grab up close luxuries that fast. I like the early granary which allows you to switch to production and still grow.

Hi, thanks for giving it a go. Something I left out of the guide, which I just mentioned in reply to another post, is that different types of resources will slow you down in the opening. Calendar resources especially as to access them you open up theology which adds another 3 - 5 turns of blocking. So sorry I didn't mention that, next time you give it a try you can estimate the time you will be ready for the RA's to fire by what resources you have around you, adding some turns for calendar resources especially.

In your start you have an awkward combination with trapping and calendar required to harvest three luxuries, so it was far from near perfect and warrants adding about 5 turns to the signing of the RA's. Sorry I didn't explain that. A near perfect start is gold gold gold gems, or something like that.

Also as you are approaching turn 80 you should be monitoring if you're going to make it or not, as HBRiding can be skipped as a full tech and just blocked till after if necessary. With practice it's not that difficult to align it all, it's just tricky when you're doing it for the first time and I probably should have explained it better. I could have suggested turn 55, but I think those 5 turns are too precious and should only be given up if it's really needed.

Another thing that can stuff you up is if you work too many high production tiles and don't grow the Cap to about pop 6 and hence slowing your research rate too much.

It was only your first try at it, you will be able to configure it all easily with a few practice runs.

 

[snarzberry]

Ok this is just a Standard Continents Emp game to show it being done. Here I am steamrolling through through 4 AI's before turn 150.

This is a really good starting location. Very nice. What am I gonna do with all that gold? I think I'll buy myself an army.

After Askia was flicked aside as the first target, he was nice enough to remain small and build me some nice wonders, it was down the continent to my old friend Gandhi, then to Bismark and finally Washington. 50 turns of carnage.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

Great writeup, I have had success with a very similar strategy using the Ottoman Janisary, and the French Musketeer.

You won't have the Chineese general, but the units can take the cities by themselves. And their promitions stay great after upgrading to Riflemen. Especially the Janisary.

 

[snarzberry]

having horses close is another key aspect of this strategy.

I don't know if it's the start bias or just variance but I seem to never get horses with China. Luckily you only need 1 Horse and you can get that from one of the other AI's for 45 And if you are concerned about losing access to your only Horse you will take that into consideration when choosing which Civ to attack, with the idea of going after a more secure supply. To be honest, this has never been a problem for me.

 

[elthrasher]

Nice strategy. I like the minimalist aspect. I gave it a whirl on deity last night and had two major stumbling blocks:

The first four civs I met already had the first luxury I developed. That's incredibly unlucky!

I screwed up and signed a RA too soon. That's very bad.

The upshot is I didn't get to attack until turn 98. Walls went up and the city had 25 defense, which meant my guys were only doing 1 damage. I think you have to be a lot faster on deity for this to work. It might actually be better to just try to slingshot your way up to gunpowder and upgrade as many guys to rifles as possible, though I'm not sure you'll grab enough luxuries to afford enough RAs with just one city.

What do you recommend for additional social policies? It seems like you could go into Landed Elite to make Beijing all the greater or you could put points into Piety, which will let you puppet more cities. Or maybe even Patronage, if you expect your economy to take off. Might be a good way to go.

 

[snarzberry]

Nice strategy. I like the minimalist aspect. I gave it a whirl on deity last night and had two major stumbling blocks:

The first four civs I met already had the first luxury I developed. That's incredibly unlucky!

I screwed up and signed a RA too soon. That's very bad.

The upshot is I didn't get to attack until turn 98. Walls went up and the city had 25 defense, which meant my guys were only doing 1 damage. I think you have to be a lot faster on deity for this to work. It might actually be better to just try to slingshot your way up to gunpowder and upgrade as many guys to rifles as possible, though I'm not sure you'll grab enough luxuries to afford enough RAs with just one city.

What do you recommend for additional social policies? It seems like you could go into Landed Elite to make Beijing all the greater or you could put points into Piety, which will let you puppet more cities. Or maybe even Patronage, if you expect your economy to take off. Might be a good way to go.

That is unlucky that they all had your resource. On deity this is really an all or nothing attack and lets be honest - it's destined to fail more often than not, or at least it is for me. It's crazy how quickly the cities have strong defence, like you mentioned. But some civs are better to attack than others. Still I'll often just get hosed off the map trying to pull it off, but hey deity is meant to be hard.

On the lower levels, even Immortal, you can often get yourself in a position where you know you're going to win the game after taking out 3 or 4 civs. On deity that is unlikely, more like you can use this to catch up with the AI, grab yourself a decent chunk of living space and then be in a competitive game.

The way that I've turned it into a deity win later in the game is by taking patronage policies in anticipation of having a lot of puppets generating gold from trading post spam. I'm pretty sure I could go culture or space in a lot of situations after the land snatch, but there is the diplomacy tech sling shots to globalization which seems more reliable.

As for what policies to take beyond the initial 3 or 4 it depends on what you think is going to happen for the rest of the game. Patronage is an obvious choice, Commerce is good for a vast, sprawled out gold producing empire or even Honor if you think you can just keep the attack rolling for a domination win.