Okay so pivoted to cuirs. I had only researched up to MC on eng path so not much wasted beakers. Forges aren't the worst to have when whipping 80-100 hammer units so I think it's okay. After winning music race and making some trades, I went for Theology -> Paper -> CoL -> Phil (bulb). Then started GA which resulted in 1 GS and 2 GM. On this map I didn't see a big need for CS (no farms, don't need maces). Since there is dominant religion I decided to make a play building the AP during GA. I lost the AP to Pacal. Now I'm voting China in the AP since everyone else is voting Pacal. I just got gunpowder and about 12 turns from MT. Only problem is I have very few HAs. Good point about the trebs. Figured I'd build a few to bombard cities without castles or even suicide a few to soften tougher city defenders. Now the question is do I attack Sury (people like him, same religion, but he has pyramids and other goodies). Or attack Joao who everyone hates and he is pretty weak militarily (attacking Joao might start another world war against him, he is just recovering from the first one).
Proud to say I got my first domination victory on immortal recently! As Alexander I went for and lost the pyramids! But I was able to regroup and build an economy for an engineering rush. Vassalled Justian which setup the game. He had built every imaginable wonder in his capital including Mausoleum, Great Library, the thing that gives all religious civics, the thing that gives 2+ happiness everywhere, and a few others. After that it was on to cannons to take China who I took the AP city from (he screwed my first attack with AP vote). After that it was a pretty straightforward path cannons->rifles->cavalry. I surely made tons of mistakes in the late game and wasn't the most efficient. Probably I could have won a 100 years earlier. Here is the save if anyone is interested. Thanks everyone who contributed to my vast improvement from a pathetic noble player!
(and still 16 with accuracy promotion).