Well, this one is definitely a hard 'un. The starting location kind of spanks, there's a lack of luxury resources, and there's no easy way to link up to the other civs without the Lighthouse.
I lucked out, running into the Romans' city of Veii with an exploring Warrior that was Elite after beating up some barbs. Disappointed by what I'd seen of the terrain so far, I decided to get stuck in right away and I attacked Veii. Much to my surprise, I won, and went on to keep the Romans beaten down quite handily. Not so much because I was a great player, I suspect, but because I managed to baffle the AI with a little hokey-pokey action. As I madly expanded and teched to Horseback Riding so I could slaughter the Romans, I noticed something.
An archer came out of the Roman city of Antium to challenge my encroaching Warrior. But then I moved him away. So the archer moved away. Then I moved back to threated Antium again. The archer came back. Grinning merrily, I continued on with this dance and the Roman generals obliged me, even continuing to waste up to 6 archers in this stupid little dance routine whilst I murdered his other cities. Eventually Antium was his capital and second-last city, so I moved in with horsemen and wiped out the dancing archers.
Anyway, just as I was about to annihilate the final Roman city, an Indian galley showed up (they had built the Lighthouse). All the other civs seemed quite excited about my world map so i was able to parlay that into near-parity on techs and a crapload of gold and stuff.
The Indians and the English made good use of the maps I sold them, nestling little cities into the various nooks and crannies of my continent that I hadn't yet fully covered with my culture. I've since absorbed all but one of the English cities, as the English are culturally backward and impressed with my culture.
The Indians are kind of spread all over, with a couple cities here and there interspersed with the other nations, which are more cohesive. The first problem is that they were the most powerful other civ, so I MPPed with them, and then the buggers go and declare war on the French, then the Russians, triggering the MPP and causing me war weariness problems as well. The only good thing is that the OTHER civs tended to do most of the fighting and the Indians didn't get many new cities out of the deal.
I wound up going with the all-cash plan, buying new techs as I raced to catch up with the technologically advanced other nations. About the time Fission and Spaceflight were researched, I had upgraded all of my cities with the requisite cultural and scientific improvements. I had been building Hoover Dam in one of my bigger cities and switched it to United Nations as soon as Fission was discovered. I got Fission the turn after the Indians and I only had 11 turns left to go with the switch from Hoover, so I SHOULD win this race, though it will be the first Great Wonder I've managed to create.
Which brings up another troubling point. The Indians have built so MANY frigging wonders that I have lost a city to them. A 12-size city, with all the culture buildings, on the same peninsula as my capital!!! This troubles me to no end. There were NO foreign nationals in the city, no unhappiness, no civil disorder, and BAM! THe buggers defect. It almost made me declare war on the Indians in defiance of my MPP with them simply because I wanted to RAZE the city of traitors to the ground.
If the fates smile on me, I will complete the UN before those bastard Indians and be able to wrest a diplo victory before they assimilate all my other frigging cities.
Update
Well, I thought I was toast when the frigging Japanese of all people (they were the 2nd weakest civ) manage to build the UN 2 turns before me. HOWEVER, I had teched up even more and began throwing down factories with Nuclear Plants and became a production powerhouse. I eventually won the game via Space Race victory, by a margin of only 5 or 6 turns. Whew. The excellent Science ability of the Greeks stood me in good stead while I teched up Modern Age stuff at 4 turns/per with 70 or 80% science only, and still earned up to 1000/turn from trade and tax.
The weirdest part was that the English were neck-and-neck with me in the space race, and I cut off their supply of Spices in trade to force them to create more entertainers instead of labourers. Then, a turn or two later, I discover that while I've got Laser, they have teched to Synthetics. I ask what they want for Synthetics, and they respond 'The Laser', of course.
THE WEIRD BIT is that I then offered them Spices for Synthetics and they accepted it as is. Seems a little counterproductive if you ask me . . . as it was, it took them 3 or 4 more turns to finish researching Laser, by which time I was down to the last component on my ship (the structural thingie outside). Nice for me, but a tactically poor choice on the part of the AI. Heh.
That's all for now; after something like 15 hours to finish this game, over three days, I'm done. it's Miller time.
Callahan
Well, first I'll get temples everywhere, than I'll make libraries and them the marketplaces (if I have currency by then). I haven't been able to construct any wonders neither, Athens was near constructing the Great Library and the Oracle, but both times an other civ did it before me. I won't build the Forbidden City yet, I think, but Corinth has almost finished the Colossus, and the Great Lighthouse won't take long either anymore. 
Cheers!
