I find that somewhat near 10-12 Rivals on a Huge map fits me perfect. Although, I havn't played that many Huge maps.
In my latest game though, a Huge Map with the Zulu's, at Emperor difficulty. I used the combination of Horsemen+Impis. Because I was the only one starting "Below" the Jungle, I had to use many of my workers to build roads through the Jungle. Combined with some cities this didn't took that much time. But I took care of the French pretty much at the same time as these roads were built (that was located north of me, with the jungle between us). So the captured workers were used to build the roads from the other side of the Jungle.
This is actually the first game I actually succeded in demanding a city without being in war, even if the city didn't be of any help and flipped back pretty early. (Because of my late culture start on this map...)
When the French had been taken care of, my horsemen turned towards the Persians. I had since very early blocked their Iron. In version 1.21 it seems like they demand you to leave even with a scout quite often. But then I just walk back, and even if it took 4 turns to get back to the Iron, guess what, they havn't built a road yet...
Anyway, my blocking of resources also involves a Horse deep inside Japan, which also are among the weakest powers.
I placed my horsemen so that I could take 3 cities at the start of the war, and so I did. Then after taken these cities, I attacked a Longbowmen in the field with a lone Elite Horsmam, he won but couldn't be protected next turn. So what happens? He gets attacked and WINS! And what happens then? A leader appears! But then what? The horseman get attacked again... NO!!! the leader dies! Argh! Now it's my turn. I want revenge, I attack the longbowman that killed my Leader and Horsman with an elite Horsman, and what happens then?! You guessed right, I got a new leader!!!
Then the problem was what to do with it. I did some espionage and saw that the Germans (the most powerful after me) was about to finish the Sun Tzu in 3 turns! So I rushed it in an old french city, that actually flipped back some turns earlier, but that was the safest city I could get the Sun Tzu to before the Germans would build it.
One problem though... I didn't have Feodalism... And both Persia and France (1 city left) didn't speak with me! So I couln't demand the tech.
Then I checked the powergraph, and saw that India was quite weak and not close by, so I contacted them and bought Feodalism for whatever the cost.
Some turns later I bought Chivalry (or did I demand it, probably from France), and started upgraded my Horsemen to Knights.
As I only get 100gpt I can only upgrade 1.25 horseman per turn, I started to feel like I wanted the Leo's Workshop. So I left Persepolis alone and went for other cities surrounding it, and I also brought my Elite horsemen with my Knights, to milk me another leader.
I can't tell you anymore, because I havn't played anything more. Well, yes one more thing, this map looks fantastic score-wise, A lot of Jungle, and Grassland, Almost No Tundra, and only a spare amount of Plains, and even less desert.
The worst thing is that I started in that area, the area of the most Plains and Deserts. Well, it turned out fine, and I hope I can Win this game and not loose to Germans Culture (they are Cultural Devils in all my games...).
Well, happy HOFfing to you all!
I just let them produce a couple shields and pay gold to buy the remaining shields. Since I'm running a democratic governemnt, my civ could produce 3000+ gold each turn. That's good enough to buy at least 7 new tanks each turn. And since I produce most of my units next to the front line, they will be ready for battle immediately.