I was demoralized with my early game in the BC and didn't really see a way to proceed. Then I got distracted with designing BOTM 238. After getting back to this game, an expanding cultural border on the small island finally opened a way to some more land. Maybe there was a way to proceed.
Hatty was trading Ivory to me, so I had elephants and cats to send against a barb city with a huge stack of archers. While building up my own stack, I waited too long to attack, and suddenly all those barbs were longbows. My first attack only eliminated half of them. I finally captured Olmec in 1370.
By that time, Cyrus had expanded into the western end of that continent, then granted all of those cities to his new vassal, Saladin. I went to war with them in 1460 and destroyed the Arabian Empire by 1665. Cyrus would not capitulate.
I started taking the battle to the Persian continent. I had captured one city, when Vicky launched a surprise amphibious invasion in 1745 that took one of my home cities!
Luckily, I was able to take the city back, but now I was fighting a two-front war. Vicky had iron, which gave her a significant military advantage with cannon and frigates, but after repulsing one more landing, I was able to pay her some gold for peace in 1818. Meanwhile, Mao had capitulated to Lincoln.
I finally captured Persepolis and forced Cyrus to bend the knee in 1838. By now, all of the other AI were far ahead of me in tech. Since our mapmaker had eliminated the peaceful victory options like diplomacy and culture, but inexplicably left us with the equally peaceful space victory option, all of the AI began the space race. Freddy and Hatty took their turns going to war with Lincoln/Mao, but Lincoln was able to mount a successful defense.
Vicky had an early lead with her spaceship construction, so I thought I'd try an invasion to take her out. I started ferrying units into an American border city. When I thought I had enough, I launched my surprise attack in 1947. Vicky had very few land units in her coastal cities, including the one harboring her fleet. My amphibious invasion eliminated that fleet--sweet revenge! Vicky struck back and recaptured one of the three cities I'd taken, then it settled down to a long war of attrition. I took London in 1964 and York in 1966. Vicky still wouldn't capitulate (although I didn't want that, which would have left her time to complete her spaceship) and she wouldn't give me any tech for peace.
I signed a ceasefire for some relief from the war weariness and to rebuild my forces.
I resumed the war in 1972 and destroyed the English in 1980.
Frederick completed and launched his spaceship in 1981.
His army was vastly superior to mine, in tech level and in numbers, so invading and capturing Berlin to destroy the ship enroute (by that illogical game mechanic) was impossible. I let the clock run out and Fred won his victory in 1991.
So...I have the consolation of being first in score and close to the domination limit in population (but far short of the limit for land), but I couldn't overcome this game's handicaps. Hopefully, this will be good for a green ambulance.
He was already researching rifling at this point, so glad I took him out before he got there. So now he could also conveniently hand me over replaceable parts and after getting rifling myself upgraded the cuirs to cavs and shipped them over to the other continent. Vassaled England and America, took out the Chinese. Meanwhile declared on Persia and got 4 of his cities on the island between us, but before I could invade his mainland and before he'd capitulate, my newly acquired cities from China and America came out of revolt and pushed me over the domination limit. Fun game, especially up until the reunification of Germany, after that it was smooth sailing. 
. Unfortunately, Mao and Lincoln waged war against her...
