I also went with Julius. As for Traits, Augustus' Industrious probably wouldn't have helped much because Forges don't have much time to pay off and Wonder Failure Gold isn't really necessary, even with keeping most of the Cities. With Isabella and Huayna in the game and with self-teching Iron Working early on, going for The Oracle is probably a trap best avoided.
That said, I only used Slavery for a Civic, and I only whipped 3 Courthouses (which could have been whipped/Chopped at full price nearly just as easily), so Organized didn't really do much for me, either.
I would be interested to see by how much a HOF-like start would help, with a Commerce Resource or two to speed up research. As it was, I built 2 Settlers but delayed settling them until Iron Working was learned (at the start of Turn 37, 2520 BC).
I did luck out with getting Agriculture from a Hut. Actually, I didn't even realise that I didn't start with Agriculture until it popped from the Hut, so I narrowly avoided having to restart due to that luck. Certainly, getting Bronze Working or Iron Working with Hut luck would make for a big advantage, while getting Agriculture or The Wheel would also be helpful.
Another option would be to play a coastal start, as I find that Rome starts often have 2 or 3 seafood Resources (usually Clams) when starting next to the Coast. With Fishing as a starting tech, you can build Work Boats while doing an Iron Working beeline, and the extra Commerce from working coastal seafood squares will help you to get there.
A start with Flood Plains and Mineable Commerce Resources would probably also work well enough without any Hut luck. I ran into Unhappiness issues and ended up focusing on working Hammer-heavy squares instead of whipping, which delayed the initial warring, but also sustained the production of reinforcements (which I ended up needing for my first major battle anyway).
Yes, the second AI was far away, but that fact meant that more Huts could be grabbed, so that situation is one of the tradeoffs.
The first major battle, like most of these types of games, is often either about luck (catching an AI off of its guard) or about patience (waiting for additional troops while Pillaging, as I ended up doing). The first major City capture (Saladin's capital) netted me a Gems Resource, giving me some much-needed Happiness, and making up for not starting with an early-game Happiness Resource.
From there, you should have enough production power to create enough Praetorians to conquer the whole map, so it just becomes a logistics game of deciding in which of two directions to send newly-built troops.
(had construction, so could have slow rolled it)
