After Persia was eliminated, I ganged up on China with India. Well, actually, India left me holding the bag all by myself.
Before I could make much progress, the French had landed a Settler near the western area where I'd just finished clearing out some Barb Cities. So, it was war on France, too. It was only then that I found the River Rhine's Gold, which France owned. How convenient it was that we were already at war with each other. ^.^
Anyway, I took down China, razed the French City near the Gold and built 2 Cities on that island. Maybe it wasn't an ideal approach (I could have kept a Size 4 City) but my Happiness and Healthiness caps were still low, so I felt that 2 Cities working some Gold Resources would get up to speed faster than a single City would, even one that started with some population points.
I let China with one City but later I bribed India to finish them... then cut into India while India's stacks were split.
Once India was taken, it was time to shuttle troops across the water to Paris, which I did from both the north (from near the Rhine's Gold Island) and from the east (shuttling troops that had destroyed India).
After taking down most of France, I went for India's two island Cities and finished them off, too.
Meanwhile, I was set up nicely for Domination, as I had a good portion of the world's land. However, I have been trying off and on to get a Space Victory and this map seemed to be pretty good--the Persian Cities were solid for production and I'd gotten off to a great start.
I also also reasonably set up for Diplo, too, since the two remaining AIs (the Mongols and the Greeks) were Friendly with me, but that fact just meant that I felt safe putting aside the war machine while I teched to the stars.
I fed the AIs some techs but I only got a couple of random late-game trades, such as Flight a couple of turns before the end of the game. I was pretty much teching the mid-to-late-game tech tree by myself.
I managed to complete the Engine in 4 turns, 1 turn behind most of my other Spaceship parts.
I had fun building the late-game World Wonders unopposed, including the 3 "Hits" Wonders, The Three Gorge's Dam, and even The Space Elevator (since it's a useful Wonder in Vanilla as you need Robotics for a Spaceship Victory, unlike in BtS).
To me, the greatest challenges of this map were:
1. The Barbs
2. Taking down the Persians
3. Finding that elusive Gold when I was too busy fighting Barbs and AIs to think about the idea of building a boat
4. The French hogging too many of the Wonders on "the other side" of the mountains
I goofed up my Golden Ages, in that I was short a few turns' worth of turns in order to get my final 2 Great People, so I just said "forget them" and got one a bit earlier in my Great Person Farm, just giving me the "2 Great People" Golden Age. I ended the game with several turns' worth of Golden Age remaining, so I guess that either my Great People usage is terrible or else I just won the game too soon!
My Final Score was reported by the Submission system as being lower than I remembered, so I guess that I must have taken the Challenger saved game.
I bet not many civs can say they built a spaceship while still having slavery!
I tried to stick with Slavery until the end but the Emancipation Unhappiness from two AIs was sufficiently high to force me into switching to Emancipation at the cost of 2 turns of Anarchy, without getting any other Civic-swaps in the bargain.
I eventually settled all that land, but at the cost of no Open Borders.
Not having Open Borders with ANY AI will hurt you. Some things to consider:
If an AI has most of its Cities on one side of your empire and builds a couple of Cities on the far side of your empire, you can always fight a war later where you defend your Cities on his main border while taking out the isolated Cities that were settled on the other side of your empire.
Get a Trade Route connection (using Sailing or Roads), even through one AI that you do not have Open Borders with, to another AI. The farther-away AI is less likely to send Settler Parties through your lands but will still provide you with the lucrative Foreign Trade Routes. Those Foreign Trade Routes are "free" Commerce, so you really want to be getting it! Note that they're not completely free, in that the AI will also get some, but if the AIs have Open Borders with each other anyway, then by Opening Borders with such an AI, you won't really be giving that AI anything new, as they'll already have Foreign Trade Routes. Don't get left out of the game--you want to be reaping the same benefits that the AIs likely already have!
Oh yeah, one more thing: Asoka had a non-Fast-Worker. I just confirmed that if I am the Indian Civ in Vanilla and capture another Civ's regular Worker, it turns into a Fast Worker. Similarly, if I declare war on India and they capture my Worker, it turns into a Fast Worker. Jesusin, did you perchance move the Indian Civ?
Of course, like an idiot, I proceeded to pillage all those gold mines and farms while my cata knocked down the city defenses. 
). I'm guessing Rhine's gold is more important (to the point of settling 2nd city there if possible, and then fending off barbs on the mainland), but it does slow expansion a fair amount.
But victory 
).
) and SIP. Not the best spot, but OK I think - I like my capital to be fairly flexible, although here it was mostly cottaged.
]
) so that just left the Mongols, who hated everyone & whom no-one liked as the whole world was Hindus apart from them. If I could somehow persuade the Mongolian people to vote for me, that might be enough... and the only was to persuade them was by military power.
. I accepted peace and went in search of a softer target. (I later got Fascism and built Mt Rushmore, which really helped.)
