v86 Germany

[El Bogus]

So, that one was quite a doozy. I played on Deity BUT I handpicked a start where I was able to grab some Classical Wonders and a religion and settle Italy and Bulgaria with my Starting Settlers. (I don't know why I want it hard, but easy.) Anyway, take the Deity difficulty with a grain of salt. If anyone's interested in the start - I uploaded a savegame.
There are quite a few things to report:

• In some instances, you are able to make peace with City States that are supposed to always be in war (e.g. Vikings, Pirates, ...). A savegame is included. I suspect that this is the case if these City States are simultaneously offering you a quest for unit gifts. I was able to make peace with the Vikings and the Pirates which resulted in a Viking/German Europe until I wanted to take Oslo and liberate western Europe.
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• The Huns can be quite strong in some instances. They left no trace of a Classical Europe and went on to raze every Russian city after their spawn. (Both to my advantage... )
• Anyone remembers squatting from RFC for Civ IV? It's a practice where you occupy the enemy spawn with your own capital which was originally exempt from flipping to the enemy until squatting was eliminated. Well... It doesn't work in this iteration of RFC, either. I tried and ended up with a 15th century Nazi Germany after my Capital flipped to the Austrians.
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• As others have already mentioned, there are other ways to get rid of an enemy's Starting Settler: Either buy back the lost tiles or use a Great General for a culture bomb. If the Huns are still around you can gift them undesirable cities which get instantly razed regardless if they were regular cities or capitals. Be aware that the Huns will get Victory Points for these cities, though. They will snatch victory from you if you aren't careful.
• How to chain collapse your enemies without hurting your own stability (too much): Capture their capitals which seems to lead to an instant collapse and gift them all to a single other civ that's far away. Said civ is probably to collapse, too, due to overexpansion.
• Some minor things:
  • The missionaries that spawn with the Conquistador event have no charges to spread religion.
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  • When a city flips to the Barbarians and a unit of the former owner had been in it, before, it stays there. That makes it a unit that acts as a defender when a third civ tries to attack the Barbarian city.
    Spoiler :

    In this instance, the turkish Galleas prevents me from taking the city with a melee unit.

    
  • Some capital placements are awkward: Berlin, Delhi, Moscow and Beijing all lack a river and adjacency to a mountain which is the prerequisite for an Observatory. Since your capital is normally your strongest city even if you don't complete the Tradition tree, I try to avoid settling these cities as there is no possibility to move your capital.
  • @Rhye: You mentioned in a different thread that you wanted opinions on why the USA was relatively weak. In my game, the USA got heavily raided by the Natives who razed two of their cities. Their land is incredibly good, so I suspect it's the hordes of enemies that the USA has difficulties with.
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[El Bogus]

Here are the savegames.