I plopped the settler down immediately; headed the worker to the wheat; sent the scout out, and sat research to warrior code. My first goody hut popped a settler and Niagara Falls was founded at the northern tip of Salamanca’s peninsula.

The game gifted me with two early settlers. Being new to the epics world I would have preferred a more typical start, but this is what happened. The second settler came after the scout popped mysticism, bronze working and a dud or two. It happened in 2900 on the Southwest coast of the home continent.
The second settler went north unescorted and founded Grand River (later to become the capitol) in the heartland.

 
The third settler (produced the hard way) founded Allegheny due south of Grand River on the square between the gold and the river in 1750BC.

After completing warrior code I went for Polytheism at minimum science. The strategy was to run for monarchy. After that I could research iron working, the wheel, and horseback riding. No early mounted warriors would mean no G.A. during despotism. Which would mean getting to keep all those bonus shields. Besides, I was trying to dig my way out, and I didn’t think it could be done by remaining in despotism.

By 1000 BC America had not only showed up (along with Babylon and Zululand) but was planting settlers on my continent. At this point a win and good relations with my nearest neighbor did not seem compatible. I crossed my fingers and went to war with archers and spearmen. Fortunately there were no pikemen and thus no defense greater than a two. I settled with Abe in 800 BC for several small techs. This included iron working. Of course there was no iron in sight, and the warriors just sat there. Well, it was despotism, and they fended off barbarians and made people happy.

 Two points on the above map. The funny rectangle in the upper left-hand corner is just an artifact of my screen capture program and the FP at Allegheny is just a pre-build for a library. Research was dragging so slowly that I did halt the drive for monarchy long enough to research literature at mostly 80%. That’s a settler under the American spearman. He settled St. Louis in the western desert after we beat him to the continent’s southern tip with Mauch Chunk. Note also the undeveloped horse resource Northwest of Grand River. I had hoped to spend my loot on promoting warriors and had not built chariots. No vision of the future is perfect. Around 700 BC I went to war with Babylon over Samarra. Still with archers. In 600 BC I told Abe to get out or declare war. Honest Abe broke his treaty and declared war.

I settled with Babylon in 560BC for map making, and a little later settled with America for currency, philosophy, and horseback riding. Absent iron I developed the horses and began producing mounted warriors.

 The above Pic is from 250 BC. I had just gone to war with Zululand over New Zimbabwe which had been founded on my continent’s skinny northwest peninsula. Note Shanka’s wounded long bowman and note the mounted warrior on Oil Springs. I’m two turns from monarchy. I feel a G.A. coming on!

I had my continent plus my G.A. and couldn’t afford real war with the big dog, so I settled with Zululand ASAP and began building mounted warriors like crazy. Absent iron for feudalism’s pikemen I turned off research for a few turns and sank most of my money into infrastructure. I shipped galleys down the coast from Salamanca to Miami and even hurried a few galleys on the southwest coast. I declared war on America in 110 near the end of the GA and dropped 5 spearmen, twelve mounted warriors (more will follow), and one archer on the iron (Iron!) next to New York.

 I proceed to take New York, Washington, Seattle, and Atlanta. In the process I picked up the first of the games two GL’s and used him to rush the F.P. at Washington. I finished researching feudalism and settled the war for monotheism.
 
With the F.P. in place we began real research and started with Chivalry. The Mounted Warriors were upgraded to knights. The peace with America expired in 500AD and in 510AD I declared war on America. I wanted everything Abe had, and work on infrastructure had depleted my ability to occupy cities, so I took Abe out. This war produced my second and last GL. which moved the palace to Grand River. I must admit I plopped him down then took a city. The price of a capitol went up, and I would up waiting a few turns for the palace to move.

 
Somewhere along the way Egypt and England did show up. I built embassies, made friends, and even traded some tech with backward England. Between 760 and 770 a formerly polite Shanka declared war to get at the dyes in the bottleneck shown below

This, however, freed up wines for which Ham was glad to form an alliance against Shanka. With Babylon between us I could pretty much ignore the war. However, I did slip a settler and a large force down to the Babylon Zululand Border and fortified on a mountain as shown.

The last thing I did in the war was to step southwest off the mountain and plant the settler in Shanka’s territory thus grabbing one of the coastal spices from my good friend Ham.

I felt like the game was won at this point and I went all out to stay in everyone’s good graces. I went for steam power, industry, electricity, replaceable parts, medicine and then scientific method. There was iron and coal at Atlanta so I rushed a factory and build the Iron Works. Salamanca and Washington build factories and I used Universal Suffrage and a palace to begin pre-builds for T. of E. and Hover Dam. The timing was good if not flawless. In 1210 Salamanca completed T. of E., and in 1265 Washington completed HD.

I did get concerned about the slow rate of scientific advance and in 1335 I went to war with Babylon to grab her cities. This did not help much. The city of Babylon might have helped, but at the end of 1360 with a stack of doom sitting on the doorstep of the civilizations last stronghold the city of Babylon went back over to Ham. I took it right back, but of course it lost a ton of infrastructure. Ham had to be taken out completely because I had decided to go for diplomatic victory. Just couldn’t let the looser vote..

There was nothing to do after that but research, trade, make friends, and head straight for fission. I did pre-build the U.N. via a palace at Atlanta. In 1510 I finished researching fission, formed MPP’s with Egypt and England., gave Radio to Egypt then England, converted the palace pre-build at Atlanta to the U.N., and hit shift enter. When the dust and the U.N. vote had cleared I saw this:

The final screen follows. As before the rectangle in the upper left hand corner is an artifact of my screen capture program. This is my worst ever cultural result. But I won!