However, against humans players, the victories can be really close and luck always seems a factor in both victory and defeat. There were occasions that I won, due to good luck and bad decisions by my opponents
One recent 1 vs 1 game with a pal:
Tournament play- Random Land (got Mediterranean)
I went random civ and got Maya. He chose Maya. We both made some tactical errors in the game, in that he made a huge army quite early, but he was waiting in anticipation for my medieval/gunpowder assault (my preferred times of attack)so he didn't make any moves early.
I didn't do the usual of building up forces to raid, and then launch a full scale assault; I just went ahead and boomed. I also built a docks and just put out a few fishing boats, and some light ships to scout the ocean. Once I got my army up in Enlightenment, I went into an assault on his nearest forts by the sides. However, during the melee, he got the upper hand due to his superior usage of spies, commandos and the rest of his troops. My army was being decimated, even though i had a huge force.
However, I felt that i was lucky as he did not build any ships, and so I pumped in a few more ships and hugged the side coast, so as to support my ground forces. It helped a little that he didn't do anything about my ships till modern age. Due to my good econ base, I could still pump out lots of troops to hold on, even though it was clearly obvious that he had the superiority on the ground. He also neglected to put some planes into the sky. Ultimately, I held him till info age, and I got up a Supercollider and got global prosperity and World government. By then, he had taken one of my outer cities and his cruise missiles were clearing all the econ buildings in my second outer city. He was just a city away from my capitial.
I was quite desperate, but I felt that his neglect of my research choice gave me some hope. I built an airbase in the centre island (which we both neglected, up until then) and put out a small infantry force and sent them to wait. at the airbase, I put out 8 stealth bombers and sent them to reduce my enemies capital. By then, his crusie missiles had totally wasted my second city and his troops were slowly taking their time to capture it. But at the same time, his capital had been reduced and my small infantry force was moving into his capital. Subsequently, I won a capital victory.
My point for this entire post is that: had he taken the trouble to put out a few ships, my puny land force would not have been able to cross the ocean. It was quite close as I didn't even have time to take out his docks before i crossed. I was also lucky in that he didn't build any fighters to try and take out by stealth. He was clearly the better player in battle management, and yet he lost.
So, luck had helped in my victory over a seemingly better player.
Ps: Can't post rec game cos this was played in office during work!!