I gave it a go and I was able to finish them off in 1225BC. I'm sure many of the better players here could have done much better, but I didn't micromanage my chops or whips. I'm sure my build order wasn't optimal, either, but it got the job done... barely...
Research order was Fishing -> Bronze Working -> Wheel.
These are really the only necessary techs, but with the gems and clams at the capital, the tech pace was very fast.
Next up was Animal Husbandry, after that it doesn't really matter. (I picked up Iron Working, Archery, Writing and some others before the axemen were done)
Build order was workboat (I started a Fast Worker, but swapped in the workboat after Fishing was done) -> fast worker -> workboat -> settler (whipped once the city was size 5) -> barracks.
My lone warrior scouted south to find Charlie then came back north, hitting woodsman II on the way. Then I sent him back to Charles to worker hunt. Sure enough, a worker appeared at his borders to mine a hill, and then it was mine. I made peace with him as soon as I could, because my only military at this point is still that warrior.
I founded Bombay 1N of the copper, which already had a road to it, and used both workers to finish the mine as soon as possible. Then I chopped and whipped the hell out of my capital, building 7 axemen there while Bombay finished 1. That gave me a force of 8 axemen at his doorstep at 1525BC.
First town was build on the copper like in your game, one axe died, and the second burned it (it was a pretty bad spot). The 6 remaining moved on to Aachen, which was guarded by 3 protective archers. This is not very good odds, and a better strategy would either be to bring more axemen or attack his capital directly. 4 axemen died there, 2 won their battles, and one of them was promoted to CRII the next turn to finish off the last defender. Once 2 of the remaining axemen had healed up, they went south and finished off his remaining city, losing another axeman in the process. 2 of my original 8 survived.
As you can see, I just barely pulled this rush off, and a bad turn of the RNG could have ended it quick. I didn't get the barb swordsmen event like you did, but I think that might have helped since it would have been free promotions for my axemen. Stealing the worker was a big help and it slowed him down a lot, too. Declaring war on him might have put him in a defensive mood sooner, though, but I guess I won't know for sure.
I'm sorry I didn't make a more detailed writeup of how I managed my builds in Delhi, but all I can say is to whip and chop as much as you can. I really didn't think about doing that until I was sacking his cities, but like I said before, it probably wasn't optimal anyway.
With all that said, I really had some help. I knew exactly where the copper would be, and where he would settle, and a rush was planned from turn one. If this had been a normal game, I might not have rushed at all, and once I had scouted the island out, a decision to rush at that point probably would have been too late. I might have picked up a religion first (I probably could have anyway with how fast the tech rate was). Maybe a better way to handle this start would be to found a religion and spread it to Charlie and then play a friendly builder game until you had a very nice tech lead. I'm not sure how that would work, as the area around your capital isn't really that great and Charlie is going to take the rest pretty quickly. And if you do eliminate him early, then its an isolated game until optics, leaving you all alone with the barbs and no early religion.
In summary, settle your second city next to the copper, then whip and chop as much as possible.
Short version of "cheese": don't try anything that makes the game fun and/or easy. Programming CIV was hard; playing it should be harder.
Vijay also makes a real nice GP farm but right now I switched back to slavery in order whip out a few harbours and forges.
). It is one thing among many that doesn't work as you move up. Try going for early religion on monarch + for example - you can easily miss the religion and hurt yourself by not being able to improve tiles. On prince and below, religion is almost a gimme for a civ with mysticism. Early religion + SH prophet can easily equate to war and expansion money, not to mention diplomatic manipulation by merely building roads! Cheese!
