Feedback for first prince difficulty game (3rd retry)

Hello, was hoping for some feedback on my first prince game (3rd retry):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/22rd10ej7ucod8g/jieyangh AD-0900IsabellaMonarch.CivBeyondSwordSave?dl=0

This is my third retry from 4000 BC save. The first time, I tried to offensive settle for copper in the northwest to deny it from the Maya. However their borders took the copper from me. In a panic, I tried to take down their city of Lakamha but failed, losing entire army. blah.

Second attempt, I settled for copper to my southeast, let Maya take copper to my northwest, and built up an axeman rush. the rush was too slow. i only took one city and failed to make any more advances. because Mali and Maya were on good terms, their attitudes toward me soured, and i wasn't able to trade for as many techs. Mali gave Maya feudalism, and now it was BCs and he had longbows for defense, i had axemen and catapults didnt seem good.

I took a break from the game for a week and replayed some older save games on warlord and noble, seeing if i could get more BPT by specific dates. Then I retried this save game again. This is my best attempt yet, but it seems like i got lucky. what i mean is, mali founded judaism, maya founded buddhism, different religions they were annoyed with each other! i switched to judaism

Got the great library. Got construction and started massing catapults. Then backfilled horseback riding so i could mass elephants. Traded techs like alphabet and aesthetics and literature (after i got g lib) to keep parity with mali. finally i attacked the maya and took two of their cities and forced a capitulation. didn't quite have enough units to take their capitol.

So now trying to figure out my next move. Mali is friendly. I was reading that you dont want to attack friendly AIs. But i also read mali can become runaway tech monsters. So I wanted to weaken them by taking enough cities and then forcing capitulation. So I was thinking massing more elepults. However at the same time I'm trying to win the liberalism race. Currently 10 turns away from education. However, my expansion is already hurting me. right now i get -97 gold when running at 100% science, but only +64 gold at 0%. Its 900 AD and my BPT is only 294 at 100% science. going to have one city pumping out workers so i can spam more cottages.

I'm worried if i dont attack mali and focus on winning liberalism theyll get too strong to attack later. but if i do attack mali i'll fall behind in science

 

Did you keep your 4000 BC save and can you upload the file? If you started from 4000 BC a third time, then you are probably interested in starting again from the top. Here is what I think you should do:

1. Save your game, wherever you are at. Based on the screen shot, it looks like 900 AD.
2. Start your game from 4000 BC. Take a screen shot of the start position. Don't move anything. Just save the game.
3. Upload the screen shot at the 4000 BC and the save game file.
4. Put the screen shot above in spoiler and give it a spoiler alert, map at 900 AD, or something like that.
5. Wait one day for feedback.
6. Play around with the start, if you want - or play around with your 900 AD game.
7. See what advice you get on the start.

It looks like an "Earth" map and you are in "Sub-Saharan Africa."

Over here, I have a game where I messed up right from the start, but played way too many turns and went back and restarted. Good luck!

 

Looks like you are in a classical position of trying to do too many things at the same time.

I think either approach would be workable.
Either just sit steady, do a workerburst and spam cottages, delete units you don't need and grow cities and work commerce where you can.
Alternatively, just continue to build units and mass a strong army and just continue the attack. You seem to have the land available to endure even castles and pikes/longbows in a war of attrition.

Not 100% sure winning lib is a priority though. Do you really need free speach/free religion and universities...? Likely not.
Good trade bait, sure but if you only have Mali to trade with you are advancing them too with every trade!

Difficult to assess w/o opening the save. (I generally prefer at least two screenshots of a situation when people ask for advice. A zoomed out (field of view) overview of the entire empire, and one screenshot at the tech situation in the trading tab.