I'm currently in the process of wiping out Greece in my current game who is/was the runaway on the second continent (huge, marathon, continents map, immortal, 22 civs and 22 CS).
I am playing the Shoshone and found myself surrounded by Rome to the east (10 tiles from my capital), the Ottomans to the west (not right next to me but i would be expanding into them) and the Iroquois to the north (with a small mountain range directly between our capitals but could easily be moved around) with a slightly less dangerous Netherlands to the south so i knew there was likely to be a lot of war involved although i was lucky enough to spawn in the middle of a jungle/forest, next to a mountain, on a hill with a river near by. If i settled by the river i would loose the hill and mountain so stayed where i was as the river was only 1 tile away so could still use it for farms.
Considering the fact that the Shoshone build new cities with lots of extra tiles, i had a lot of jungle and forest to work with and along with the fact i found both Mount Sinai and Mount Fuji in the near vicinity and my capital was inland i decided to go liberty so i could grab those natural wonders to grab a nice religion, be able to expand quickly to the coast and go for a conquest victory as well as have more efficient workers to help me deal with the rough terrain.
I easily managed to grab both the natural wonders so i was kicking out 11
without having to build any faith buildings and could concentrate on some military to defend my sprawling empire.
I managed to snag an early pantheon and took One With Nature (4
from each natural wonder) so was kicking out 19
and managed to get the second religion and took ceremonial burial (+1
per 2 cities following my religion) as i knew i would need the happiness.
I also took pagodas for the +2
, religious center (+2
from temples) and itinerant preachers (religion spread 30% further).
Suleiman managed to grab my prime coastal city just as my settler was heading towards it which was a minor disappointment but i wasn't too unhappy as he placed the city exactly where i was going to so i planned to capture it eventually and it would hopefully have some pre build infrastructure when i did.
As Rome the civ and Rome the city was my most immediate neighbour and potentially dangerous opponent due to their proximity to my capital (they quickly expanded towards me so were even closer to my capital than before) i planned to take them out first once i had secured my expansion and built a reasonable military to do so, as it happened both Rome and the Ottomans declared war on me on the same turn which forced my plans forward a little and gave me some initial concern due to now fighting a war on 2 fronts and them both having a bigger military than me.
I did have my capital surrounded by forest and jungles even though Rome was on my doorstep which played to my advantage on defense there but on the Ottoman side it was mainly open terrain. As luck would have it i had the bulk of my military in the Ottoman direction as i had been expanding in that direction so i left 2 composite bows to defend my capital which easily dispatched what little force the Roman sent and used my main army to deal with the much more exposed Ottoman front. After a fighting retreat to the city the Ottomans were aiming for and the use of the river in front of it to protect my composite bows i managed to take out the last of the Ottoman melee units near the city just before they could capture it and the ranged units withdrew.
As the Romans were showing little interest in the war although i had initially thought they may have instigated it.i.e. asked/paid the Ottomans to join as they were my closest neighbour with the 'they covet your lands' modifier it would seem it was the other way around therefore i decided it was best to tackle the Ottomans first as my main target, the coastal city i wanted was surrounded by a lot of open terrain where as the 2 Roman cities i wanted to take were surrounded by a lot of forests like my capital and the Ottomans were actually making an effort with constant attacks into my territory even after i had deal with their initial attack.
After building my military up a little more i pushed the Ottomans back to the city i wanted and eventually managed to take and burn down the other city near by then as i still didn't know where their capital was i made peace with them so i could deal with Rome. As i later found out the Ottomans had spawned in the middle of the Iroquois, Japan, the Maya and Indonesia with no where to expand to so had gone through the Maya the settle on the other side.i.e. next to me.
After a slow slog through the forests i eventually took the 2 Roman cities including Rome but as i had broken them and they had 1 city left i didn't take peace but decided to stay at war with their last city to use it as a training ground for my military.
By this time i had eventually found the last civ on my continent also which was Venice to the south of the Netherlands.
After the war had ended i felt in a reasonably secure position as all my immediate neighbours had DoF with me and were running trade routes to me so i decided to concentrate on building up my infrastructure before embarking on any more wars to give myself a solid base and to ensure i could catch/keep up with the AI's, the Iroquois were already starting to pull ahead in science, number of cities and military and i had no idea what was going on with the other continent. They had also taken their own religion so i needed a solid religion base to ensure my religions dominance.
To that end i concentrated on pumping out missionaries although the consensus is usually to buy the religious building while they are cheap and managed to spread my religion to the Netherlands, Venice, and the CS's to the south as well as to the Maya to my immediate west while the Iroquois seemed to concentrate on the north of the continent along with Indonesia who had also taken a religion.
Tension eventually started building between me and the Iroquois, in part because we were now at a point where we were actively engaging in religious warfare trying to convert cities of each others religions and because the Iroquois were obviously going to be big trouble if i didn't do something soon because they were seriously running away in the science and tech side and although i currently had the advantage in the religion department to properly dominate their religion and to dominate the continent religiously i would have to knock them down severely as they were starting to overtake me in faith production also so started building up for war again before they got too out of control.
As it happened my plans were brought forward again. I had a little warning in that i saw a huge army of around 10 melee and 10 ranged units on my north east border at which point i got a little worried but quickly realised they were heading for that last Roman city i had kept alive as a training ground, rather an excessive force considering the city had no health as i was constantly bombarding it for xp and killing any units it produced so the Iroquois DoW Rome and took their last city.
I had a feeling i might be next as they were no longer accepting DoF and no longer had trade routes to me so repositioned my army for the attack i expected and they quickly DoW'd me.
Again the fact that my cities were buried in forest and jungle really bogged down their attack and the cities i had built at least were built on hills so i had full range of fire from my xbows (i had literally researched xbows on the turn the DoW me and had been saving gold to upgrade my composites) which by now all had extra range so could fire 3 tiles with many of them having logistic also.
Around this time i had got my first ocean going ships so headed out to find the other continent.
After grinding down the Iroquois attack i went on the offensive which was made much easier by the fact all my xbows had 3 range at least so even even though cities went down slowly i could take them down with relative safety although some were quite difficult due to them being quite closely packed and the fact i only wanted to take cities of use or were totally necessary to keep my warmonger penalty low. To that end i was saving that old Roman city he had taken just before attacking me in case my warmonger score got too high so i could liberate it for some good boy points.
Again i decided to stay at war with the Iroquois after achieving all my objectives, mainly because i had just got to frigates and wanted to train them up because by now i had begun to find civs on the other continent and one of them was Greece who was making the Iroquois look like an uncivilized rabble. They were 7 techs ahead of me, pumping out more science, had 12 cities (many of them puppets), 10 CS allies, 20k gold and 200 GPT.
I found some of this out from the great info addict mod but also from a lot of exploring i had been doing with captured missionaries from the Iroquois. Every missionary i captured got sent straight to the second continent to explore and by now i had explored most of it apart from the depths of Assyria and French territory who neither would give me open borders.
I had also found the Aztecs and India who were both down to 1 city each although the Indian religion totally dominated that continent and they were pushing out the highest
per turn mostly i assume because they took pilgrimage which give 2
for each city following the religion.
Polynesia and Sweden were quite big players as was Siam who may have been more dominant if Greece wasn't there to keep them in check along with Denmark, Spain and Russia who weren't doing particularly poorly or great.
Morocco was also doing quite well which i feel was more down to them having a big buffer of other nations between them and Greece as much as anything else as there were quite big and hadn't lost any cities but weren't exactly running away.
So as Greece had all the gold and i now had a lot of items to sell i planned to stay friends with Greece for a while to milk them for gold to help build myself up to eventually attack them.
By this time i had started into Rationalism to try to catch/keep up with Greece.
So after the war with the Iroquois ended i spent some time consolidating my position again, building up happiness and gold, overwriting their religion and training my army and navy on their remaining cities.
While in this consolidation mode the world started to get a bit antsy diplomatically, everyone hated Greece and Sweden in particular although i was trying to walk the tightrope between milking Greece for as much gold as possible while not offending everyone else but this was hard to do not least because i was playing marathon so DoF's last 150 turns and as diplomatic situation can change rapidly you can easily find yourself in a diplomatically unfavorable position.
The first to cause trouble for me were Indonesia which was probably not a great surprise as i now had a border with them due to my war with the Iroquois and i was pressuring their religion. They didn't DoW me but they did denounce me and they also had a decent sized military. I now had them on my northern border and the Netherlands on my southern border, both with a large military although the Netherlands were still seemingly best buddies with me. I also had the Maya on my western border although by now they were quite backwards and saw them as of little threat and again they were best buddies with me.
Venice had also taken over a few CS on the coast all around me but i also wasn't too concerned about them as they were also buddies.
My main fear was war on two front at home while i was off fighting another war on the other continent so i decided to take out Indonesia as they were the main immediate threat, all my other concerns currently liked me and by taking them out i could concentrate all my forces in my home territories to the south to guard again the Netherlands, the Maya and Venice if it came to it.
They also had a city of the Iroquois i could liberate for some good boy points to counter my warmonger score, their capital was coastal and they were allied with a coastal CS nearby so it would be extra training for my navy and finally they had the great lighthouse which would be a nice boost to my navy.
So Indonesia got it in a quick war to take their capital and kill off the bulk of their military. I also liberated the Roman city from the Iroquois before making peace and that combined with the liberated Iroquois city from Indonesia deleted my warmonger modifier with most civs.
Next was to start to move on Greece.
Greece was not going to be easy and as it was on another continent i decided i needed a base of operations where i could at least heal my ships as my initial plan for attacking Greece was to take all their coastal puppets, i knew i couldn't hold cities i took from them but if i can take them and liberate them it will diminish their strength while keeping my warmonger penalty in check and mean i didn't have to defend them. I also wouldn't loose my melee ships that were stuck in the city for the next turn and thus would be lost, the only down side being i would have no where to heal my ships so i looked around and saw both Spain and Russia on a small peninsula on the north of the continent just next to Greece but with Siam in between so Greece couldn't attack those cities from the land side.
I was debating between Spain or Russia (strategically they were the same on either side of a bay with a mutual border), Spain was not liked by my friends but Russia had some nice wonders, mainly forbidden palace for the boost to
and Machu Picchu for the gold boost.
In the end i decided to go with Spain to try to not annoy my friends as much as possible. I was also debating taking both still and as Spain had the large military if i took Russia first then attacked Spain as they had a mutual border then Spain could threaten the city i took from Russia with her land army which i might have difficulty defending where as Russia had quite a small military, most of which seemed to be navy so if i took Spain first then attacked Russia they couldn't really threaten the city i took from Spain.
So Spain got it in a rather quick war. I took their coastal capital then was training my ships a little on their only other coastal city when Denmark decided to DoW Spain and take the city with a trireme he had wondering past and all of Spain's remaining cities were in land so i accepted peace.
By this time the political situation had changed again and all my friends now hated Russia as well so that decided Russia's fate as they did have some tasty wonders and were right next to my fleet.
We were edging towards aircraft and i was catching up a little in the techs with Greece due to some great scientist bulbs, some research agreements and a stolen tech from Greece (from which i could see Greece was going for aircraft).
I had also had one of my friends ask me to denounce Greece and considering the rest of the world hated Greece, i wanted to attack Greece anyway and if i didn't the civ who asked would denounce me and then maybe his friends would also i turned my back on Greece politically to try to keep some friends in the rest of the world and the war with Greece was on!
Now i knew i couldn't defeat Greece for now not least because their capital was inland but if i didn't do something now it would possibly be too late later as they now had 13 CS allies, 35k gold, over twice my military and still doing 25% extra science to me so the hard work i had done catching up with the tech would soon diminish and finally they were starting to crank out a lot of tourism. I had been holding off on my factories in the hope that Greece would get an ideology first so i could pick theirs and thus wouldn't have to suffer with major unhappiness from them pressuring me but i would soon be in the the modern era and be forces to take an ideology.
Therefore my plan was to hurt Greece as much as possible...
I managed to take a couple of their coastal puppets and liberate them i also managed to 'raid' one of their coastal cities which really means i took it and they immediately took it straight back but while i lost a privateer it severely diminished that city by cutting it's population by 3/4 and destroying a lot of it's buildings then one of my spies noticed they had bombers...
Luckily my frigates had 3 range and logistic by now so i could move in, fire and move out to keep out of the way of the bombers but my options were now severely restricted.
I had moved over some Comanche riders so i could raid some cities inland which were close enough to the coast to bombard but this would now be impossible with him having bombers and there was only one coastal city i could target without leaving my ships in LoS for his bombers to attack.
During the war another world congress session had also happened and new resolutions put forward and obviously Greece was leader of the congress and had chosen to embargo me...with embargo CS's already passed as the first resolution this would leave my economy in a dire state so i had to stop that!
My one trump card is that the Ideology issue had been forced upon me, Alex had taken Order and i had taken Autocracy which meant he was sending pressure my way but was only exotic and growing slowly with me cranking out as much culture as possible to slow his pressure to a dribble but he was edging towards 30% and at this rate would be there in 20ish turns....But this did mean i could take Gunboat Diplomacy and i had been hoarding my gold so had around 12k gold to hand thus i decided peace was my only option for now.
As i was in the process of taking one of his cities Alex offered me some GPT in return for peace which was a nice surprise/bonus and now i had to rush to solve my most critical problem which was the world congress vote in 25 turns which would cripple me if Alex had his way. I did hope some would vote against it as the civs on my original continent in the least were send multiple trade routes to me and even if they didn't want the gold they were leeching large amounts of science off me but most civs didn’t seem to like me anymore for either my warmongering or my poor diplomatic choices or both thus they may just vote against me to spite me. Even the civs on my original continent my core friendship base were no longer accepting DoF’s and the Netherlands had even denounced me.
So my plan for the peace was to use my decent sized military to gain favour with as many CS’s as possible, hopefully as many of Greece’s allies as possible and then turn as many as possible before the vote with my Gunboat Diplomacy and my stash of gold while I worked my way towards aircraft carriers and battleships which would be my only real chance of a real invasion against Greece. I already had aircraft but couldn’t get them in range of Greece without carriers.
The other thing in my favour for this plan was I had greatly diminished Greece’s gold reserves at it seems he spent a large part of his gold on buying new units such as at least 10 bombers I spotted and fortifying his cities.
My only real concern was what happiness hit I was going to get from his ideological pressure once it hit 30% but I hoped to circumvent that with extra happiness from CS allies.
As it happened just as I was about to get 30% pressure from Greece I had a great writer spawn which I bulbed and that greatly reduced Greece’s influence to tide me over for a while until I could destroy them properly.
Through Gunboat Diplomacy and spending about 12k I managed to whittle Greece down to 7 votes and me up to 17 and thus crushed the resolution to embargo me and just before that had acquired aircraft carrier and had been building an airforce so as I had survived the vote I had some free gold left over to upgrade my frigates to battleships and some money to buy a few submarines then repositioned them with the 3 aircraft carriers I bought and the aircraft I had built with a few Comanche Riders for the real attack on Greece.
With this force I was quickly able to overwhelm his navy and started making short work of his cities.
Again I knew he still had a large land army/airforce so I expected severe counter attacks when taking his cities and as I only had a few great war bombers wishing to bring a large fighter force to counter his bombers I would bombard his cities down to zero but wait until next turn to take them so that when I did I could use my full force of battleship fire and aircraft to deal with any units close enough to retake the city.
Using these tactics I managed to do severe damage to his military to the point where he no longer is sending any land units to try to recapture cities and any bomber he uses quickly get shot down by my multitude of fighters.
I have taken all his cities in range of my ships and now started basing my aircraft inland to deal with his inner cities with my only barrier being the happiness hit from capturing and raising his cities so i sometimes have to wait a couple of turns while the unhappiness diminishes as cities burn. I have now diminished Greece's science to about 3/4 of mine, they are down to around 75GPT and 1000 gold but i still need to knock them down a fair bit as they are still pumping out a lot of tourism and therefore influence and potential unhappiness in my direction.
Once i have finished off Greece the rest of the world should just be a mopping up operation as long as the whole world doesn't DoW me all at once.
And my huge offshore fleets made sure that never happened. After bulbing artillery it was over as his capitol could't touch my 6 city-enhanced artillary with centuries of city-taking experience. 
Mainly because of the pillaging actually. I ended a lot of his gpt deals which made it difficult for him to rush/upgrade really taught me a lot about guerrilla and economic aspects of warfare. I tried to play it real blind and fair even though I controlled both. 
