Just FYI, there's actually a non-intuitive reason why some people experience a map as being difficult and others don't.
If you've ever played on Settler, you might have noticed that, when left to their own devices, the AI will often still be in the Stone Age on t300. The AI is coded with advantages on higher levels to make them progress faster. Unfortunately, those AI behaviors break down when the player does certain things.
The end result is, if you don't interfere with the AI progress, the game is MUCH harder on higher difficulty levels. If you do interfere with their progress, it's hardly more challenging than Prince.
I've mostly figured this out by accident over time, because I've been warmonger-obsessed for the last six months. (after being almost entirely a peaceful player for every previous incarnation of CIV)
So, here's a simple example. When you declare war on an AI, it changes their priorities. They will focus on defense instead of progress. It interrupts wonder builds, worker builds, settler builds, etc.
If you declare war on every AI,
every AI will be slower to progress.
Let's take it a step further. If you have the #1 military, AI will give you all their gold, luxuries and even their cities to make peace. This is true even if you're at war with
every AI. Meaning that every AI will offer you all their resources or even a city. You can do this roughly every 20 turns. (10 turns of peace treaty, followed by 5-10 turns before they'll ask for a peace deal)
Even if you just raze those cities, you're setting their tech progress way back by reducing population, destroying libraries they took time to build, etc.. Even if you just take their money and luxuries, you're destroying their economy and happiness.
If you also pillage their resources, steal their workers and pick off their units, you set them back even more.
People often say "you were lucky, in my game, the AI tech rate was much higher"... Well, it's not luck. It's a (coincidental) result of my highly aggressive behavior.
This doesn't touch on the advantages you receive from all this extortion. All the extra money, happiness, etc. Or the money you get from city capture and pillage.
And, as an added bonus, you can extort money and workers from City States with the #1 military.
If you add that on top of micro-management of cities, faith management, worker actions, build order, tech order, and fast, aggressive zero-casualty warfare, and the fact that warfare supplements almost every victory type (science excluded)... is it any wonder that the difference in turn time is so vast?
If you only look at one element, it can be hard to understand how the results vary so much. But ultimately, it boils down to the snowball effect. If you maximize yours, while minimizing the AI's, it dramatically affects the outcome. Actions on turns 1-50 dramatically affect turn 200. Compound interest baby.
So, when you put it all together, some people are having a tougher time, not because they're being less efficient or less effective. It's simply because they're not interfering with the AI. Now, of course, effective aggression requires a lot of practice, so you can't just get this "easy mode" for free. You have to juggle efficient empire management with effective troop movements, you have to proritize libraries vs archers, etc. etc. It's not EASY to make the game easy... if that makes sense. Hehe.
Anyway, point is, have fun with the map regardless. Extreme micromanagement and min/maxing isn't everyone's cup of tea. It does happen to be the way to win gauntlets.
Congrats to all you guys that nailed this in under 200 turns...It was tougher than it looked!!
) 
1st Cromagnus - 425 AD T-132 
2nd thorak - 900 AD T-155 
3rd Swissy - 1120 AD T-172 
