Here is the wall of text. Quickly as I am itching to try the winning Piety strategy from Cro and Vadalaz.
Salt start with decent production. The one thing I like about Boreal, you get a salt start every 8 rolls.
Strategy based on super worker Liberty/Pyramids, pillage repair and Honor left side then Commerce, and hitting Machinery between 100-105.
BO: Cap builds scout-scout-monument-granary-library-archers-Pyramids-more archers. Very important to build the archers first otherwise, once you build the Pyramids, you badly hit the unit cap with the 2 free workers and it sucks. Also that way the archers can train with a CS, and do barb quests. I try VERY hard to ally at least 2 CSs with barb quests before I start conquest, so happiness is not terrible. This sometimes delays conquest by 3-4 turns (no more than that) but pays off later. Expo builds monument-granary (if wheat/deer)-library - units. In my game I was teching very slowly as I had no science caravan routes available and had to build NC, which made me lose Oracle, not a tragedy but annoying, but even with NC I only hit Machinery at 109. More about that later.
And another thing to keep in mind, and this is counterintuitive, don't steal many workers in the first 40 turns. One is enough, but that one needs to be stolen as early as possible as improving the salts for production/food and trade is really important. If you steal more, then again you have the unit cap problem. If I can steal more, especially if it is a settler, then I do it, as that messes up the AIs growth, but I disband them as soon as I steal them. If it is after t50 or so I will keep one to help the conquest when my army gets there.
Policies: I have experimented a lot with the policy order within Liberty and Honor. I find after much testing of first 50 turns that probably the best order is Honor opener mostly for culture (if you kill one barbarian you break even, if you kill 2 you are ahead), then Liberty opener, then to free settler. Founding that second city early is essential, as it helps with the unit cap and will help your science rate as soon as it grows to 3 and you build a library. After the free settler you are either at Construction or very close to it, and ready to upgrade you CBs and start the war. If you have timed this right, then you will get 2 policies almost at the same time, the free Policy from era change and the normal one, I use both to get the free Great General (yes, Zenmaster and Vadalaz are both right, timing is everything and a GG at this time is just great) and then the quick promotion. I made this happen in my game, prioritizing barbarian kills for culture.
After that it is off to war, and I complete Liberty. It is important to finish the tree around t85-90 as you will one to use the free Great Person as a GS and bulb it to get to machinery asap. I was late with this, as I lost Oracle. Once I finished liberty I opened Commerce (gold), and then Landsknechts. I use the landsknechts as a safety net in case I make a mistake and lose units in the last capitals conquest. They are great meat shields, and they are pikemen, so very powerful at this stage. They also help with the barb horsemen. and they cost only 220 (just slightly more than a warrior!). I am usually rolling in money by this time. And at this stage of the game the rest of the honor policies are not that useful.
To have money to upgrade you archers to CBs you save money from the beginning and don't rush buy anything. Of course if there are trades available it helps.
Finally, if you are lucky and you have an AI close enough or somebody expoes in your face, a caravan will help hugely with science, and you need every help you can as hitting Machinery at t100 is pretty hard otherwise. I would fit that caravan in between the archers and the Pyramids. In my game this did not happen. If you do the caravan make sure it is not with a civ you will conquer early.
The rest is just war. I did not make any tactical mistakes that cost me turns (a few that didn't), so I cannot really see how you could do this map more than 1-2 turns earlier. I was unlucky in that Attila spawned next to me and I had to take him out first, so no warmonger to help with diplomacy.
BUT I did make a pretty big strategic mistake, or I should say I was not able to execute flawlessly the last part of the strategy. I wanted Machinery around t100, as that is usually the time when the first 2-3 caps have fallen, and then you can upgrade to XBows both armies. But I was late with Machinery.
This was pretty terrible as the plan was that my second army (West) was going to take Maria on the top right corner, then go south and take Marrakesh, while the East army was going to take all caps on the south and then take out Venice in the top right corner, far East north, leaving India, relatively close to my cap to the East, to be the last civ to be taken by a late third army. This was the plan and would have saved me 10 turns. But as I was going to hit Machinery late, could not upgrade, and I could see that Arabia (the runaway, bottom right, next up according to my plan) had a 27 defense capital. If I went for the original plan, my CBs would struggle with it, and waste turns, while Delhi was pretty close and 20 defense and rather than leaving my units idle, I took it while waiting for machinery. This meant that I had to go aaall the way east to get the last 2 caps on that side, and my cap could not send units on time, so third army never happened. And I lost 10 turns.
Anyway it was a fun game, although these domination games take a lot of time even if they are short, as you cannot really afford to make any tactical mistakes. I you lose a unit early on that can cost you the good finish time.
That was way too long. Excuse the horrible grammar, English is not my native language. Hope it was useful or fun. On to Piety!
And captured missionaries work too...
... What is going on. I have had 4 crashes in a week, and I think in the previous 12 months I had a grand total of 3-4!
monger like Ethiopia in your game, and find him right away! He is normally the first one to get a religion. Keep him under your control, and steal his missionaries. Remember,...To convert it doesn't need to be your religion! Just a missionary under your control after founding Religion and Piety Reformation. Use your missionaries to build up your Founder belief, and use the AIs for converting. Make a point of checking missionaries loyalty before you spread religion,...I have spread the AI's religion in the past...
I would have survived, and I could have recovered enough for a strong finish! I didn't think of that because I am not normally in that comfortable of a position, and selling productive buildings would normally be a death sentence when challenging for a Gauntlet.