Hey, I just went a different early path with the greatest strategy evaaa: Reload.
I tried to pop BW, I reloaded when I saw I missed a juicy lion and when I reloaded for attacking amphibiously, I won at 22% lol. Then I reloaded when I sneaked by Monty for his capital, I see I missed a worker without any cost. Then I reloaded when I attack Monty's second when I saw crap like 6 Q's losing to 2 archers and a warrior. Later I saw the same crap with 8 Q's. I said back off bad luck and I tried again I won decently and as it should be expected.
Now, I saw the same crap from Roosy's cap. Reload. Just enough.
Got free SH, and I built Oracle-->CoL. (A religion finally!)
And my interest went with that amount of reload. Sniff.
Someone playing with a decent amount of chance can get as far as this and this is a strong from which one can wonderspam or do anything crazy to tech fast.
In our first true non cheat attempt, possibly the long term strategy was bad. Because when we think about it +2300 by 1830 AD is really not extraordinary with an empire covering all america.