Very nice game and good target time, Tone.
I used Mapfinder to produce about 30 maps for the Iroquois, Chinese, and Celts. I just submitted one of the Celt games with an 890AD finish, taking 190 years off my Chinese game date. It seems there is quite a variance with the tech pace in these games. If the ai doesn't war with each other at the start, they go very fast, in one case getting philosophy before 1550BC. Another start as the Chinese I got to the MA first in about 890BC.
The game I won as the Celts was a two-cow river start with a dom. limit of 1189. I played against 9 rivals, leaving out the French and Germans from the civs Tone played. I started with no research and bought BW, IW, and alpha when available. I reached 15 cities by 1000BC when I ran out of space and started building GW's. I made the mistake of trying to research writing, philosophy, and literature getting beat by all of the ai's each time, lowering the amount of gold in my treasury to use later. Then, I turned research off and went to war extorting techs when I could. This was made more difficult by trashing my reputation early, limiting my ability to start wars with the other ai's and would come back to haunt me later.
The Celts at 1000BC:
The first wars against the Ottos and Spanish went well, with the Ottos destroyed and the Spanish limping. I liked the way GW's survived counter-attacks from archers by retreating. Soon, the Byzantines and Americans attacked from the North and signed the English and nearby Russians to ally against me as well. I made peace with all one-by-one and got Monarchy from the English before destroying them and revolted quickly before resuming my wars. The Spanish and Russians got muskets around 200AD, sowing my advance some, but I soon captured the GL from the Russians and started producing knights and some MI. By 500AD, I had the Russians down to one city and had just started war with the powerful Byzantines, who also had the SoZ and Knights Templar.
The Celts at 500AD:
This war took lasted until the end of the game. I sent my knight army on a tour of Byz. lands pillaging resources and signed one of my few ma's with the Koreans to the north to fight them. I used aggressive settling to get my knights in range of their cities and fought off the few landings the Byz. made. I razed Varna and Constantinople, since the flip risk was so high and said goodbye to Sun Tzu's. The Byz. signed the Portuguese to an ma against me, but they didn't do much damage before I made peace with them and signed them agianst the Byz. I made peace with the Byz. after capturing several of their cities and got two of their distant islands and world map in the deal. I also quickly destroyed the Russians and weak Americans before reaching the dom. limit. Its good the game ended when it did, since the Ports had cavalry and the Byz. got rifleman when they were down to two cities. Captured artillery and knight armies allowed me to defeat them before the losses became too much.
The map just before the victory in 880AD with the Byz. at one city:
I have a couple more games as the Iroquois and Chinese in progress, but don't have enough time to finish them before the gauntlet ends. This game has been both fun and instructive and it feels good to get my first two deity wins under my belt. These games didn't take that long on my computer, so good luck to all who still might have entries to come.
