I haven't tried deity yet but I play on the emp/immortal so I don't know how viable this info is for deity but here's what I've found, (I'm assuming "playing wide" is building a lot cities aggressively and then basically winning through sheer numbers/prod/etc). - Play abundant resources. You can switch back to standard if you want but I find abundant makes life wayyy easier. - First few cities you found need to have a new lux resource. I'm not a fan of building them right next to each other either. You want to eat up some territory and get nice spots. It's a tough balance to not be too greedy and I've basically lost games in the first 50 turns a few times but if you can successfully stretch early you're golden. - Pyramids. AI doesn't seem to prioritize this one and it is huge. You can usually get it out without rushing it no problem. It gives two workers which is awesome and then it saves you time on tile development which is also big early. Couple that with the liberty worker speed bonus and you're really getting things done. You're gonna need to waste turns getting workers to cities that don't have roads up yet to get early lux resources. - Culture opening. I usually like to open with the first tradition skill to get the borders going and culture coming in, 2nd is liberty opener, and your next 3 are gonna be the worker talent, the pre-settler production talent, and the settler. The order on those three depends on what's going on. - Don't worry about your science/trade til later. You're not gonna be building any libraries for a while so don't bother researching writing til later in the game. Focus the techs that you need to get your luxuries up then I usually try to head to the composite bow talent or the swordsman if I've got iron and it suits the game. - Don't spend your gold early. You're probably gonna run negative and it's nice to have a couple hundred bucks in reserve for whan it happens. - Try not to worry about happiness at 0-4, negative gpt, and weak military. This confluence of circumstances seems to happen pretty much every game. Obviously do your best to correct it but once those roads all get connected, your circuses go up, and you drop that happiness for connected cities culture talent things rapidly improve - you can get your composites up, a couple sword/pike upgrades, and from there you are laughing.

This is just what I find when I play, obviously it's sub-optimal. This method is also realllllly not for people that want to win every game because you sometimes get exposed or get attacked in an X turn window in which you really can't afford to be attacked. You could also try playing tiny islands as the islander guy that gives you free lux resources first three cities you settle on diff islands. That realllly helps neutralize the major problems, (happiness, lack of defense).