Monarch/Normal
Date: 1862 AD
Score: 9467
This wasn't easy. My first two attempts failed because I went for the domination push too soon. Third time lucky.
Capital choice is a no-brainer, Jabuuti is the only option, 1E of the start tile. Whilst walking to this location, I chose to reject Slavery and revolted back to Tribalism. No need for any Slave Revolts. The second settler founds Muqdisho on the Horse, within reach of the Crab.
First tech to research is obviously Theology. With the right trade routes, especially to the east, which allows 100% research all the way to Christianity, and some switching of production to Research once the terrain in the core area is improved with Mines and Plantations, Christianity can be founded around Turn 156. In the mean time, lots of tech trading is the key. With my starting techs, I got Alphabet + Iron Working from Greece, Agriculture from Egypt, Mathematics from Carthage, Currency from India and Calendar from China.
After switching to Christianity, I expanded south to found Zanzibar 2S of the Gems and Gondar on the Gold. I also built a Settler with some escorts and headed for Carthage to wait until three turns after the Moors spawn and then founded my fifth city (Yeha). Along the way, there was time to build the Apostolic Palace just before the Arabian spawn, but I lost the 2nd UHV condition (3x Incense) because I chose to disband San'a. Just after the Khmer spawn, they triggered an event which spread Buddhism to foreign cities, including my capital. This allowed me to also build the various Buddhist wonders along the way. If it's one thing that Ethiopia has access to in abundance, it is hammers.
Once the main infrastructure was built in my cities, I started to expand my military to include about 5-6 Trebuchets. The useless little Native city which spawns in Mozambique doesn't do much before it is swamped by superior culture, but it does provide excellent target practice for siege weapons. With 3 rubbish defenders inside the city, I was able to promote all of my Trebuchets to triple city-raider status in about 800AD.
I waited until the Seljuks had spawned and distracted the Arabian troops before declaring war and seizing Mecca. Arabia collapsed fairly quickly thereafter, and I pushed on to also capture Jerusalem with the very important Temple of Solomon. Although Jerusalem is a crappy city in itself, the Temple of Solomon combined with both the Christian and Muslim holy cities, and also later the Protestant holy city too, means massive wealth production until the Temple is eventually made obsolete. Spiral Minaret is just gravy too. The first 3 great people were all Great Prophets, which isn't hard to achieve with a few priest specialists as most of the early Great People points available from wonders are also Prophet points. Once the Temple of Solomon is redundant, I gave eventually away Jerusalem to Persia. But I had amassed over 5,000 gold at 100% science all the way to this point.
Circumnavigation was fairly easy to achieve long before anyone else. I was finishing learning Astonomy at about the time that other civs started to build their first Caravels. In 1390, I triggerd 3x conquerors events by meeting the Maya, Aztecs and Inca on the same turn. I conquered the Mayans, razing their capital but keeping Chichen Itza and their western city near the Stone. Without capturing any Aztec or Incan cities, I killed some of their units but then settled for peace and withdrew my troops out of their territory for a bit. Both Aztec and Inca eventually peace-vassalized to me, after which I gifted the ex-Mayan cities to Aztecs and Tucume to Inca.
England was also a lucky peace-vassal at about this time. They were fairly backward, not having conquered Ireland and getting harassed by the Vikings in the north a bit. I gifted England a few techs, but otherwise left them to their own devices for most of the game. They eventually managed to settle almost all of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the eastern seabord of North America plus Toronto and Vancouver. France also peace vassalised to me not long after England did. They would eventually settle most of Canada and also conquered all five of the various independent cities in Egypt, once the Mamluks eventually collapsed. After gifting away Jerusalem, I settled New Orleans and Chicago but then stayed on 8 cities for quite some time. I eventually added Denver as my ninth city in about 1600 and eliminated Kongo, capturing and keeping their capital as my tenth city.
Portugal declared war on me with their trading company event, triggering a bunch of Trebuchets and Crossbows near Mbanza Kongo. My Riflemen made short work of them though, and when I walked my expert Trebuchets up to Lisbon and pounded the life out of the defenders, Portugal eventually capitulated when they were down to their last defender in the capital. As my vassal, they would later settle Brazil to add to their holdings in Macao and Ceylon, and once the Moors collapsed they also conquered Morocco and founded that useless city in Western Sahara.
From this point until the American spawn, I ferried my conqueror troops back to the Old World and used them to gain promotions from the various Independent cities around the world. During this time, Turkey declared war on me which was very short-lived but also helped to give my troops some more promotions. Without actually capturing any Turkish cities, I destroyed several waves of their troops and then sued for peace, which ended up lasting until the end of the game. After the Turkish war, I also declared war on Netherlands, destroyed most of their defenders in Amsterdam and let my rifle-toting vassals conquer their capital (France) and also their colonies in Australia (England). America also provided some valueable experience, but they declared war on flipping my English vassal's cities of Boston and New York and their war of Independence was very short-lived.
The real threat was always Spain. They were 2nd in tech for most of the game and had control of Italy minus Venice, Argentina, Venezuela and Philipines. Spain's vassals were China, Korea and Indonesia and Austria. I waited until I had Christo Redentor, Tanks, Airports and Destroyers before unleashing my troops on Spain. Within about 6 turns, I had captured all of their European cities, Venezuela and Argentina. I used 3x Great Artists to quickly resolve the civil disorder and pop borders in key South American cities and finally reached the Domination land threshold in 1862.
I had quite a few Great People kicking around in my capital at the end that I had never used, which was a bit of a waste in hindsight. But I was worried about needing to launch repeated Golden Ages near the end, probably a little more worried than I should have been.
This was a nice little bonus just after founding Christianity:
Overview of world history:
