After several unfinished attempts in the past, today finally I completed a game with Theodora.
Large map, 10 civs, Epic speed, emperor difficulty. I won a CV in 1770. That was one of the easiest victories I ever had.
Extra mods: EE, 3&4th uniques, Wonders Expanded.
I started on a large continent, shared by Morocco, Mongolia, Greece. Neither of them rushed me, they quarrelled between themselves. My first policy branch was tradition. I finished Stonehenge, picked goddess of beauty as pantheon. From there I wonderspammed more and found first religion in continent.
I picked Holy Law, Council of Elders and Veneration for beliefs. Spammed missionaries to get CoE science and production yields in capital while picking policies gave good science, gold, faith. I reformed quickly with Crusader belief. For enhanced beliefs I picked zealotry and cooperation beliefs.
I managed to get Oracle in medieval era (1500 culture/science) by delaying completion till I research education. For second policy branch I picked Authority. When I was about to get Imperium policy, Greece DoWed, who already settled 3 cities next to my capital. 2 noob horseman were upgraded to cataphracts and more were faith purchased. Initially I holded their hoplite spam and then my conquest spree started. Walls do not stop cataphracts, castles merely delay them.
Every city captured yielded large gold, science, culture which pushed me in techs and policies further ahead. Marrakesh with 25 population gave something like 6k culture! When the world was around late medieval era (15th century) I have already conquered Mongolia, Greece and Morocco and vassalized them (2 cities each).
At that point I was already 2 eras ahead of closest competition (Russia). For third policy branch I picked imperialism to get more from monopolies and some 20 puppet cities. Cooperation belief + Tribute policy resulted in steady flow of science, culture, faith, gold from otherwise penalized puppets while 2 prophets assisted with missionaries did some convertion for more science and hammers on other continent.
Instead of jumping other continent, I decided to chill until I get cruisers. Well, meanwhile my cultural influenced everyone except Russia. After a few unnecessary wars (Get over with! > War) to pass time, Russia also became influenced and when I get my second 3rd tier Autocracy policy I finished CEP to claim my CV.
Note: are cataphracts better than lancers? They lose 1 mp and 5 cs but gain terrain defence bonus, %30 open terrain combat bonus, cover I. A bit too much for unit that is 1.5 era earlier.
