Also, I don't play small maps and usually add an extra civ to the map. This results in enough civs that are competitive to the map emerging and taking out a few of the weaker ones. The one extra civ is not usually enough to mess up the balance. Usually there are a few AI that do pretty well, and the military guys can actually snowball pretty hard from the early wars or taking out a neighbor. Though these days that hardly matters since I get ahead so quickly anyway.
Adding the extra civ either makes the game much easier or much harder depending on where the spawn sites are. If the extra civ means that you're next to Shaka and Alex instead of just Shaka, the game is going to be much harder. However, if your starting location is as it would be and the other landmass (or the other side of the continent) is more clustered, the game will be more easier. Adding an extra civ means that land will be more contested and (natural, not bribed) conflicts will be increased. If the conflicts include you, the game is harder; if the conflict excludes you, the game is easier. Also the warmongerer who snowballs earlier and succeeds in annihilating another civ always fizzles out (at least from my experience.) It seems that the success in combat leads to their failure in contending in the game as having those extra cities increasing tech/culture costs, plus all those extra buildings they feel obligated to make, plus everyone hating them, I find they always fizzle out.
I may just have diferent standards but I've played many a blob mountain or ice-locked pole map and just accepted it. I enjoy how wacky some maps are even if they end up producing difficulties. There was one game where I started on a northern coast and found later it was an ice-locked northern sea. (this happened on a boreal world). So I never built more than my first 2 military boats as a result. However, later in the game I ended up using the safe sea area to get gold/food growth trading among my coastal cities and the 3 CS also on that coast. It was a life-saver when all my neighbors decided I needed crushing as it allowed some gold routes to keep going.
I honestly kinda enjoy the random aspect of these maps. It feels like a fun history simulation with unexpected terrain/obstacles and most game a few civs getting taken out early. I don't think the maps are easier playing my way--you should see some of my starts lol!
yeah, I just finished a Mongolian deity game on Earth map where I was basically playing a vanilla civ. First off, Mongolia, Venice, and Austria are exceptional on Earth maps because these maps ignore the CS-planting bias of having only 1 luxury, 1-2 bonus resources, and 1-2 strategic resources. CS territory have three or four different luxuries, and three or four copies of two or three of them. As such, civs that are biased towards owning CS lands (Mongolia, Austria, Venice) do better there. However, I started in North America, there were no city states nor AI that were accessible. So I built up a 3 city tradition/rationalism game and won a diplomatic victory. My army at turn 200 consisted of 2 warriors and 2 archers.
Everyone always talks about how important the start quality is for a successful game. I see their point if you are concerned with numbers like finish time. Of course you'll lose a couple dozen turns to a bad start over a good start game, but if all you care about is winning like me, I find I can recover and win handily on any map
I concur that usually this is the case, but you need a better start when you face some of the more runaway AI. This is because I don't agree with the other guys statement that the AI never wins before turn 300, I've seen multiple games, and the Usual Suspects are Babylon or Korea, where they're entering the Atomic Era before turn 200, meaning that they'll at least be able to complete a spaceship, if no other victory conditions are possible, by approximately turn 250 - hard to say, when I see these snowballs begin to roll, I stop, as you mentioned, "experimenting" and stick to the tried-and-true efficient win strategies, and usually wrap the game up before turn 240
For now i still didnt finish the last GOTM and the next one is coming tomorrow 
