I conquered Edinburgh (which belonged to the Russians at that time) and won turn 237.
Initial build order - scout, scout, shrine, monument, granary, library, worker
Ruins: 100g, map, pop
Policies: Left Liberty, right Honor, full Honor, rest of Liberty, plus 1 each in Rationalism (out of habit), Exploration (the ocean was huge and my Frigates were slow, so the extra movement really made a difference), and Commerce
Major events timeline:
t46 Desert Folklore
t102 Religion: Tithe, Happiness from Shrines
t112 Oracle
t153 Enhanced: It. Preachers, Extra Production
t170 Astronomy
Conquered Capitals in the following order:
t118 Rome
t139 Istanbul (which had Statue of Zeus and Colossus, both great to have at this early stage)
t157 Stockholm
t188 Marrakech
t206 Gao
t215 Warsaw (w/ 2nd army)
t229 Jakarta (w/ navy and parts of 2nd army)
t236 Moscow (1st army and parts of 2nd join forces)
t237 Edinburgh (w/ navy mainly, plus 1 or 2 cannons)
I was contantly struggling with happiness throughout the game. Gold was an issue in the beginning, but when I completed Honor and opened Commerce it got a lot better.
The toughest opponent was without a doubt Rome. The terrain was tricky with all that Jungle, and he had city spammed to the north (I had an expo on the copper, as described in the Opening Actions thread) so I had to raze 3 Roman cities before I could get to Rome from a convenient angle. I wanted to attack the capital from the SE, where there was no jungle.
Against Rome I was still using Composite Bows, while he had Ballistas and Legions. Once Rome fell I got Machinery and I upgraded to Crossbows. I razed one Ottoman city on the coast north of Istanbul, then took their capital. It was a walk in the park with XBs and catapults.
Istanbul was my only city with ocean access, so I annexed it to be able to build Frigates.
After conquering Istanbul my army went north towards Stockholm, then west to Morocco. Neither of them put up much resistance, but Morocco was far away and had difficult terrain. I had to raze one of their cities to get access to the capital (I didn't want to take the long way around).
Around the time I conquered Marrakech I researched Navigation, but realized I didn't have any Iron for Frigates. So I had to settle another expo between the 3 Iron tiles, NE of Istanbul. The tiles were already mined by the Romans.
My army near Marrakech embarked SW towards Gao, and new units built in the capital and expos went east towards Poland. My Frigates were also sent to the east, to eventually conquer Jakarta and Edinburgh from the sea.
I took Warsaw with Musketmen and Cannons, and Jakarta with Frigates mostly, plus some land units coming over from Poland.
Meanwhile, my first army which by now had some highly promoted XBs and Cannons in its ranks, took Gao. Then it made its way west towards Moscow, razing two Songhai cities and two Russian cities along the way. I allied Anantarivo just by liberating their workers. Having them allied gave me a good angle for my inital attack against Russia.
The Russians had the Great Wall, but I had enough GGs to build some citadels and take their cities easily. As I approached Moscow, units from Poland came to help out from the west and joined with my first army coming from the east, completely swamping Moscow in units. They didn't even put up much of a resistance, and Moscow fell in turn 236. Edinburgh (which was occupied by the Russians) fell one turn later to my navy of Frigates and a Caravel, securing my victory in turn 237.
I used 2 GSs on Fertilizer and Military Science, and was planning to pop Dynamite with Oxford University but I won the game before finishing Oxford.