The Game Rules
I decided to play this game using an Erkon-style Kill 'Em All type of approach.
The rules that I set out for myself were simple:
1. Similar to an Always War game, I must declare war on an AI shortly after meeting them. I was allowed to delay a few turns in order to hunt for a Worker to steal, but if I took my time in doing so, I was required to simply declare war on said AI.
2. I must always remain at war with at least one AI until the end.
3. I am not allowed to take a vassal and I am not allowed to retire--elimination (of them or me) must be utter and complete.
Capital Location
I had planned to settled 1S of the Gold. That way, I would get the Gold, the Deer, at least a few Grassland River squares, and a chance at other Resources in the fat cross. The map layout seemed to scream for doing so, with enough Forests being missing (removed by DynamicSpirit?) in order to efficiently move and thus settle there on Turn 2. I was not concerned about losing the Dye Resource as one would need to research down two completely differing tech paths--Iron Working and Calendar--just to use it. Since we were not Financial, I did not see that settling on the Dye was really going to be much of a boon. Since I did not plan to get to Levees (either I'd be dead or the AI would be before then) and since we were guaranteed to have plenty of health from Forests due to the map type, settling away from the River was not a concern for me.
With my Settler first moving 1S then 1W on Turn 0, I got to see that there was no Deer on the square to the 1SE + 1S of the Settler's starting location, which would have been the only thing that would have made me settle in place on Turn 1.
However, I ended up changing my mind and settled 1SE of the Gold instead of 1S of the Gold, after seeing the additional Deer available by way of the Warrior. In hindsight, I should have stuck with my original plan, as I missed out on using a Corn Resource to the west that I never ended up using in any city's fat cross.
Further Cities
I built Settlers reasonably quickly and went for early Pottery. As a result, I only had Warriors and it took me about 24 turns between completing my third Settler and actually finding a spot safe to settle him. As it was, a Warrior wasn't enough to defend the Settler (fighting Barbs every couple of moves and having to stop and heal for several turns after each fight doesn't really let you move very far). Thus, I had to wait until I had built a couple of War Chariots before I felt safe to settle city 3.
Early War
In the meantime, I was at war with Russia and China, having met them first. It wasn't until later that I found France and summarily declared war on the French. By that time, Napoleon had a Chariot, but with a Woodsman I promo on my Warrior from Barb Animals, Napoleon was loathe to use the Chariot against me. Therefore, I was able to disconnect his trade routes between cities, cutting off his trade route connections and reducing Chariot production to one city.
I tried to keep the AIs as oppressed as possible as soon as I got War Chariots out. Worker harassment and pillaging were the words of the day.
The Oppressed AIs Manage to Get the Upper Hand
Eventually, though, Napoleon managed to build some Spears, Axes, and Swords. I couldn't figure out why. The other AI didn't have any Copper or Iron to trade to him, and I couldn't see Copper (I had researched Bronze Working) or a Mine in Napoleon's territory that offered more Hammers than normal (i.e. an Iron Mine).
As a result, I lost my strategic advantage and had to send too many War Chariots to choke Napoleon, allowing Mao to hook up some Copper and get Spears and allowing Peter to hook up his Horse and get Chariots.
Much later in the game, when I took Iron Working from Mao for a 10-turn peace offering, I found that Napoleon had settled on an Iron Resource, even though it meant that this same city with a Fish Resource was not placed on the Coast. It is normal to see AI settle one square away from the Coast (silly AI,
) but not so when they have a Seafood Resource. It is also rare for the AI to settle on a Resource.
That city really smells of being hand-crafted, with the placement of Resources being such that Napoleon "had no choice" in his programming but to settle on the Iron. I couldn't even tell by looking at the city's centre square that there was Iron there, as the Iron was located on a Grassland square instead of a Plains square, so there was no bonus Hammer for Napoleon to get and thus no bonus Hammer for me to see. Once Napoleon had Sailing, all of the pillaging in the world wasn't going to cut off his Iron-based unit production, as he'd settled all of his cities on the same river (also a suspicious situation, that Napoleon had one long river connecting his capital to this seemingly engineered Iron site). As it was, this one simple city turned an easy rout of War Chariots vs Archers into a long, drawn-out slugfest.
Poor Research Rate
It took ages to research anything, as I was fielding so many units that I could barely maintain a positive tech rate. After researching Alphabet, 98% of my subsequent turns were researching at a 0% Science Rate, as all of my money went to upkeep costs. I relied on the odd Scientist Specialist for my Research, but was mostly technologically backwards compared to a regular game.
Negative Income and Strikes
Once I started capturing cities, the economical situation only got worse. Several times, I had to throw away entire stacks of units just to kill a couple of AI units, say, Swordsmen defending in a Forest, just to balance my budget--had I not "used up" said units, they would have been lost to a Strike anyway, having dealt ZERO damage (a disbanded unit can't hurt anyone).
Further Techs
Currency was a life-saver, even if it didn't come until 500 AD. In fact, it wasn't until 1210 AD that I picked up Civil Service.
The Persistent AI
I had been hoping to get a Conquest Victory, but the AI proved to be resilient. Any time that I let up on an AI, they massively expanded and rebuilt a huge army.
Peter regrew his empire from 2 cities to 6 cities, while for every city of Napoleon's that I captured or razed, he managed to build another one.
The Tide Turns
The turning point was when I lost about 15 units in a struggle to take China's last city and finished Mao off in 920 AD. I was then better able to focus my military distribution, balancing units on the frontlines between the two remaining AI.
In 1230 AD, Russia was eliminated and in 1250 AD, France was no more.
A Disappointing End-game Movie
Although I had achieved a complete Conquest of my rivals, due to some inconsistencies in the way that borders expand when a city is captured and a Civ is still alive versus when a city is captured at the time of a Civ being eliminated, my borders expanded unexpectedly past the Domination Land limit.
Domination trumps Conquest in terms of tie-breaking when you win both Victory Conditions on the same turn, since you aren't allowed multiple Victory Types in Civ4, so I was awarded a Domination Victory. There's nothing wrong with that fact, but it still feels unsatisfying--I really felt that after living up to my self-imposed Kill 'Em All rules, I deserved to see the Conquest end-game movie, which I think is a lot more exciting than seeing a flag being the instigator of a planet-wide red-colouring action.
Other Comments
I liked the distribution of the occasionally-placed Jungles. If one were to abuse Forest chopping to a high degree, one would risk the Jungles spreading and taking over the previously Forested land. However, there also weren't huge tracts of Jungle, which would have taken away from the feeling of massive tracts of Forested land being anywhere that you settle. So, there was good map balance this way--players could chop some, but those who chose to chop excessively would be punished for doing so.
There weren't all that many different Resource types on the map, or at least it felt that way. No Fur and no Whales (at least that I could see) made Markets far less efficient in terms of Happiness benefit. I also don't remember seeing any Incense. I was really surprised not to see Fur on such a heavily-Forested map, as you normally expect to find Fur Resources near the poles in a heavily-Forested area. Still, at least we were given the Forge Trio--Gold, Gems, and Silver, so, even though I didn't get to Metal Casting in my game, most people could probably make up for missing happiness with some Forges.
I love War Chariots. Other than Immortals and Quechuas, I don't think that I have a more favourite Protective-leader-bashing early-game unit. I laughed whenever Mao would promote his Archers to Drill III, as the War Chariots were immune to first strikes, no matter how many Drill promos he assigned to his Archers.
I saw plenty of Barbarian Spearmen in my game 
even lost a city defended by a Combat III promoted War Chariot to a Barb Spearman 
(I used the WC to escort the Settler and was attacked before I could get any Archers there - my mistake 
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, and after a few more votes everything was set up.
