Greece
UHV1: First to discover Mathematics, Literature, Aesthetics, Philosophy, Medicine
UHV2: Control Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylon, Persia in 330 BC
UHV3: Build the Colossus, Parthenon, Statue of Zeus, and Temple of Artemis by 250 BC
Civics: Kept starting civics (Republic is handy and you'll get enough Happiness resource so won't need Monarchy).
Cities: I like Halicarnassus (on Horse in Asia Minor) on easier difficulties, but on Paragon there are usually too many Hulugannis storming that area, so I went with Epidamnos (tile adjacent to Clam, Copper). Both cities start with Work Boat, then Olympic Temple for Epidamnos, Library for both, then focus on Wonders and growth (you'll want to maximize your Core population). Conquered cities build Library and then Barracks + Hoplites, plus an occasional Wonder if time allows.
UHV1: This is ultimately the difficult one - on Paragon you have to eliminate both Egypt and Babylon ASAP, otherwise one of them will beat you to one of the 5 techs (typically Literature). There is no chance to get the right GP to bulb Literature, and the Oracle is already built when you spawn. If you attack Egypt first, Babylon will beat you, while if you attack Babylon first, Egypt will beat you. To solve the Catch 22, I decided to try to attack BOTH from the get-go!
2 Hoplites immediately attacked Babylon, while the 3rd Hoplite and a Huluganni that flipped to me went for Egypt.
Egypt: tends to be the easier enemy out of the 2. In my case they just recently built their third city 1E of Wheat which only had 2 Militia defenders that I took down amphibiously. I was thinking of razing the city but was afraid of the stability hit and potential collapse / Egypt or Babylon respawn. The two units, once promoted and not even fully healed, went forward towards Niwt Rst (1 Archer and 2 Militia defenders) and was quickly captured. I did not go for their third city in the south as I was sure Egypt will collapse.
Niwt Rist is a fantastic city if well-improved (in my case had Incense, Gold, Horse, Camel, Quarries all developed hence was a massive boost to my economy). I built Olympian Temple there, then Library, Barracks, and ~6 Hoplites.
Babylon: this is the really tricky part, but you need to capture Babylon asap with the 2 Hoplites! Not sure if I got lucky or if the very first attack of a new civ tends to be a win, but I won my first battle with ~30% odd (Babylon archer with 40% culture defense and some fortify bonus), which gave me some nice experience. The other hoplite killed an archer en route from Nineveh to help, and the first Hoplite once fully healed was able to take down the second Babylon archer, and later a Militia, hence I captured Babylon!
At this point I had high hopes, but unfortunately Nineveh didn't seem like it will collapse and I knew they will finish Literature soon (much sooner than I will). I quickly pillaged the improvements around Nineveh to slow their tech/production while I shipped my 2 Egyptian veteran units over, and with the 4 units I managed to capture Nineveh wiht small losses (Nineveh was building Skirmishers instead of Archers for some reason)!
From here on, the game is won. The only risk is a collapse / respawn of one of the 2 defeated civs. To avoid that, I emphasized growth in the 2 core cities while stopped growth in the conquered cities. With the nice republic bonus I was able to max out specialists, eg Babylon at pop 3 can run 3 specialists. Babylon built Olympian Temple followed by Militia and Hoplites.
Techs: Calendar (GS bulb, from Babylon); Literature; Bloomery; Construction and Mathematics (GE bulb, from Niwt Rst); Priesthood; Aesthetics & 80% of Philosophy (GA from I think Babylon again), Philosophy, Cement, Medicine.
Got my GA in 460 BC when UHV1 and UHV3 kicked in.
UHV3: You'll have fantastic cities, already quite well-developed, plus you will capture a bunch of workers, so building the wonders is the easy part. Without much focus, I ended up building the following wonders (in that order): Sphynx (Athens), Colossus (Epidamnos), Parthenon (Babylon), Temple of Artemis (Athens), Statue of Zeus (Epidamnos), Hanging Gardens (Niwt Rst), Great Cothon (Athens). I forgot but could have also built Great Library before I won. I also controlled Pyramids, Oracle, Apadana Palace in the captured cities.
UHV2: I captured Phoenicia relatively early as my stability allowed it and it is a great city with Dye and Wine. I only declared war on Persia just 6-8 turns before the deadline, and my army of ~10 hoplites (built mainly in Niwt Rst and also in Babylon) was easily able to capture Shush, Persepolis, and Aspadana.
Stability: At times I was scared and had to starve some cities; stability bonus from good economy was a major counterbalance that kept me stable or shaky for most of the game. One could also quickly build more Core cities, however you are already running science on 30-40% for most of the game so that may just put your economy into the toilet for good.
It may be possible to split your army differently, eg 2 Hoplites + 1 Huluganni going to Babylon, and only 1 Hoplite to Egypt. Alternatively, you may get luckier with your starting Hulugannis, which could derisk this strategy further.
