GOTM10 was on Regent wasn't it? On Regent it's almost all up to the player, the AI isn't going to help you get to a ~1500AD launch at all, so just ignore them for the most part once you've cut out your optimal number of cities empire. I like to go about 1/3rd ICS, where cities have 10-12 tiles each, and are spaced 2 tiles from at least one other city. This way a Settler can make it to a new city site on the first turn, and build the city on the second. Most of the workable tiles will be used by the end of the Ancient Era.
If you do a bit of warmongering early, a GL can really help in placing the FP. Usually there is time to build an Archer inbetween Settlers early on, and after Temples are built there is a bit of a lull until Libraries are available. I like to use this time to do all the warfaring for the whole game. The main goal is to carve out an empire, a GL is just a plus.
The sooner you can get into a Republic, the better. I find that a 40 turn Alphabet to start (or Writing if you're Commercial) gets enough spare change so that you can almost keep 100% tax rate throughout the rest of the game. By the time your initial treasury has run dry, you should have made it to Mapmaking (give the AI's Writing and Pottery, and they'll research it for you while you get Literacy, then head for Republic). After that, sell your maps (make sure to do some exploring of course) for a couple gold per turn from each Civ. If one of the AI's starts to build up a bit of a treasury, sell a Tech to them, even if it's just 20 gold. Every once in a while they'll research something first, which helps. It won't happen much on Monarch and below if you're doing it right though. Once in a Republic it's sometimes a good idea to back off the research a little bit to rush Libraries with gold. How much depends on the game, and how much gold you're getting from the AI's. At most it should take about 20 turns to get Libraries built in every productive city. Before in a Republic the Libraries don't do all that much, and should be building Settlers as much as possible.
Wonders are almost all a waste, the only time they are worth building is if everything else you can build is built. Copernicus and Newtons with the Collosus is nice, but not if you had to delay building your Library or University to get them. The only ones that are must have is the UN, just to control the vote, and ToE obviously. Once a city has their improvements (enough happiness to stay productive, library, university) you can go ahead and irrigate everything they are using. Turn the excess population into researchers. Research Labs are the only other thing to build really, the rest is just waiting. If you're religious (or on a low difficulty), switch to Democracy, otherwise it's not worth it. Don't research it on your own, just wait for the AI to get there and then trade. Sanitation and Literacy are really the only two 'unecessary' techs you should research.
In the Industrial age, try to build up a bit of a tech lead. Don't sell any Techs until you have built ToE, this way you can hold off on building it as long as possible. In GOTM10 the techs I got from ToE were Radio and Motorized Transportation IIRC. If you have a good lead, you may want to save it for the first couple of Modern Tecs even.
The rest is really just timing pre-builds. Try to have your low production cities that will be building parts start the first ones, then switch to the bigger parts later one. That allows your high production cities to quickly finish the smaller parts by about the same time the others finish. SETI and Manhattan are good prebuilds too. I like to have mostly finished Colloseum's building in all my cities going into the Modern age, to switch to research labs. Depends on how quickly you can research Computers just when to start them. Then rush the rest with gold (by now the AI's should be keeping you rather rich).
In GOTM10 I didn't get a GL, so I built the FP about 10 tiles away from the Palace. Not optimal in any sense of the word, but I built it very early (I think city number 5 started on the prebuild for it right when it was founded, finished before 500BC IIRC). I tried to build as many wonders as possible though, which slowed things down a bit. A GL in my limited fighting might have cut another 50 years off the date, but it was pretty close to as quick as a Regent launch is going to come. On Deity (and to some extent on Emperor) it's completely different of course.
If you can get your FP built, have switched to Republic, and have about 30-40 cities (adjusted for mapsize) with Libraries before hitting the AD's you're well on your way. It's just about getting a feel for the map/difficulty, and then timing things right.
(some of this may not be quite right, it's been a while and I don't have my saves anymore for exact timing... but it's the general idea)
