I played with the Contender save, as it is a rare treat to try out the Warlord difficulty level.
My goal was to play a militaristic game. I'm decidedly more of a Builder player, usually going for Cultural, Diplomatic, or Space games. The odd time that I get a Conquest victory usually occurs once I've built a very solid empire and can use Infantry or better units to take over the world.
What I learned with this game was that if you are a Builder and you want to play a militaristic game, there is one and only one philosophy that you need to follow, and that is to ask yourself:
What would I build in this city in a regular (Builder's) game?
Once you have your answer (such as a Market, a University, one more Monastary, etc), then make a point of NOT building that building. Haha.
Build something else. Pretend that you are Montezuma and override your tendencies by claiming that every second build has to be a unit!
I also wanted to try out the whole "Lightbulbing" strategy, where early Great People were not settled and did not become an Academy. Instead, I used them mostly for techs:
Machinery (250 BC)
Astronomy (245 AD)
Hagia Sophia was rush-built in my Great Person Farm (500 AD)
Philosophy (770 AD)
Education (1106 AD)
Printing Press (1214 AD)
Divine Right (1226 AD)
That's not a lot of Great People, nor did I get them particularly quickly. I also missed out on the Bureaucracy bonus for most of the early game and the extra Science from an Academy.
Although I picked up Astronomy pretty early on, I didn't have much of an army. I was still mobilising at that point.
5 AD stats: 7 cities, none captured. Strongest unit = Axeman
245 AD stats: Built The Colossus that turn--partially for denial purposes (I didn't even get 1 turn of use out of it, since I Lightbulbed Astronomy during that turn), but mostly I built it because I let my Builder tendencies get in the way of a fast military victory. 8 cities, none captured. Strongest units = Swordsmen & Crossbowmen
500 AD stats: 10 cities, two captured (one from each of Montezuma and Tokugawa). Strongest units = Swordsmen, Crossbowmen, and Catapults
800 AD: Tokugawa eliminated
875 AD: Montezuma left with one city so that I can get a tech for peace
905 AD: War with Mansa Musa
1070 AD: Mansa down to 1 city
1085 AD: War with Cyrus
1178 AD: Cyrus eliminated
1184 AD: War with Kublai Khan
1238 AD: War with Montezuma (he still only has 1 city remaining), also War with Isabella
1244 AD: Kublai eliminated
1256 AD: War with Alexander
1274 AD: Montezuma eliminated
1280 AD: War with Hatshepsut (now I am at war with everyone, having declared on Mansa a second time in there somewhere)
1304 AD: Isabella eliminated and Alexander eliminated
1310 AD: 4 AI cities remain. I am within a few turns of capturing or razing all four of them. The Domination Land Limit was exceeded at this point, giving me a decent Final Score, but not high enough to break the 100K barrier.
As for World Wonders, I built (too many), building all of the early-game Wonders except for Stonehenge and Chichen Itza. Had I skipped many Wonders and gone conquesting my neighbours earlier, my fast Astronomy date might not have been so wasted.
As it was, Galleons made for very efficient warmongering against both Montezuma and Tokugawa, so getting Astronomy early had its uses.
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(currently 34 in combined global rankings, varying between 20 and 40).
