My first (semi-)isolated start. Help me please!

[Heavymachinegun]

I think this cannot be defined a REAL isolated start, since I'm with the Egyptian guys, but...

Game details:
Map: Fractal
Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: Normal
Leader: Augustus Caesar

I'm on a small, poor, deserty continent with my Egyptian friend. Far away, beyond the oceans, there is a HUGE and RICH continent full of 5 civilizations. One of them is financial (Mansa Musa). He has a big space to expand and he's getting richer and richer every turn. Everyone asks him to become vassal. I think this is not an easy start. Moreover, the civs in the big continent seem to be constantly at war among each other, so their armies get bigger and bigger.

View attachment AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

I decided for this strategy:
PHASE 1, objective: destroy Egyptians
Tactic: Beeline to Iron Working, found 3 cities, gain access to iron, build 10 praetorians, WAR, smash Egypt.
Concluded at turn: 110/500.

Just before the war:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus II BC-0550.CivBeyondSwordSave

After the war:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus II AD-0900.CivBeyondSwordSave

PHASE 2, objective: get Galleons to cross the oceans
Tactic: Get Currency, improve economy, DO NOT EXPAND (to save money and science rate), beeline to Optics, discover the other continent by Caravels, beeline to Astronomy, trade Astronomy with some military techs (Engineering and Feudalism).
Concluded at turn: 194/500.

The whole map:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus IIb AD-1535.CivBeyondSwordSave

PHASE 3, objective: invade the other continent
Tactic: upgrade Praetorians to Macemen, discovery Guilds, build Knights and Galleons, gain some espionage against Maya with slider (0% science, 50% espionage), conquer 1 city (as a strategic base for the rest of the conquest) with spies and defend it well, make peace, bring a huge army to the new continent, WAR (for real, now), destroy Maya.
Concluded at turn: 255/500.

The conquest of strategic base:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus IIb AD-1620.CivBeyondSwordSave

The end of the war:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus IIb AD-1725.CivBeyondSwordSave

And now? I entered a peace period to improve my economy, but I'm back in science!
I want to smash Montezuma to gain domination victory, but he's very powerful (Infantry!). In the meanwhile, Mansa Musa and his vassals are getting richer and more powerful each turn.

Current situation:

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus IIb AD-1920.CivBeyondSwordSave

Help! What should I do now? I really want to win this game to learn dealing with isolated starts. Did I choose the wrong strategy? Should I run a more peaceful strat? Maybe a wonderspam (I'm industrious)?

 

[Doshin]

Do you know whether Mansa is plotting on you or Montezuma?

Since you have a good beach-head, a military victory will be your best option. Grenadiers and Rifles can cut it against Infantry, but only just (with massed Cannons in support).

Your priority now is to catch up in military techs. For the time being, build wealth or research to do this. Try to run your research slider at 100%. As long as you can get to Infantry and Artillery, you'll win the game.

Tech to Steel if you haven't already and build Cannons while teching to Assembly Line. If Mansa attacks Monty, you can wait a few turns and then backstab him as well (with a large number of Cannons and Mansa to soak up Monty's initial counter attack, you should be fine). If Mansa attacks you, then you'll likely lose the Korean cities and have to regroup.

 

[barbertje]

That last save is really hopeless, because mansa will get to a cultural victory in at most 23 turns, making an impressive 689 culture/turn in his third city. None of the cities is on the coast and mansa already has tanks.

That after-the-war save is from 900 AD, but you destroyed Hatty in 125 BC. You should
really try to get some tech out of her. I played from your before the war save, and left Hatty with 1 city in 1 AD, taking code of laws and monotheism in a peace treaty. I'm hoping to trade monarchy from her before I finish her off. Since you know she has Code of Laws, it is essential to get to priesthood before the peace treaty.

Your economy is not in a good shape at the start of the war, even if you turn the slider to 100%, you only make 21 science. Switch Rome to a library after completing 1 more praetorian. Any more praetorians from Rome won't get to the front in time anyway. I also switched research to masonry and sailing before alphabet, so Rome can work on the great lighthouse. You can just as well stop the barracks in Cumae, since that won't be ready in time for the war either and cumae has low producion, so it's better to chop 1 preatorian and to concentrate on growth and commerce with a granary and lighthouse.
I would rather have a city 3 east, 1 south from rome than Cumae.

Building wonders is really the best way to recover in this kind of situation, where you have excess production and not enough commerce. You'll get more from aesthetics/literature than from currency.

You also must work harder on great peoply, you have generated only 1, a prophet for the confucion shrine in 900 AD. You really need an academy.

 

[Heavymachinegun]

That last save is really hopeless, because mansa will get to a cultural victory in at most 23 turns, making an impressive 689 culture/turn in his third city. None of the cities is on the coast and mansa already has tanks.

That after-the-war save is from 900 AD, but you destroyed Hatty in 125 BC.

Sorry, I'll post the correct screenshot/save this evening.*

* EDIT: I mean, "evening" in the italian time zone.

You should
really try to get some tech out of her. I played from your before the war save, and left Hatty with 1 city in 1 AD, taking code of laws and monotheism in a peace treaty. I'm hoping to trade monarchy from her before I finish her off. Since you know she has Code of Laws, it is essential to get to priesthood before the peace treaty.

Your economy is not in a good shape at the start of the war, even if you turn the slider to 100%, you only make 21 science. Switch Rome to a library after completing 1 more praetorian. Any more praetorians from Rome won't get to the front in time anyway. I also switched research to masonry and sailing before alphabet, so Rome can work on the great lighthouse. You can just as well stop the barracks in Cumae, since that won't be ready in time for the war either and cumae has low producion, so it's better to chop 1 preatorian and to concentrate on growth and commerce with a granary and lighthouse.
I would rather have a city 3 east, 1 south from rome than Cumae.

Building wonders is really the best way to recover in this kind of situation, where you have excess production and not enough commerce. You'll get more from aesthetics/literature than from currency.

You also must work harder on great peoply, you have generated only 1, a prophet for the confucion shrine in 900 AD. You really need an academy.

Could you post some example saves? Do you think a domination victory will do, or should I try something else? Maybe I should have attacked Mansa instead of Mayas during the trans-oceanic invasion?

 

[coanda]

That last save is really hopeless, because mansa will get to a cultural victory in at most 23 turns

Fortunately, you can win within 12 turns.

Wasted one turn hitting end-turn just to measure Mansa's culture per turn to figure out how many turns I had to work with.
Gave in to Monty's gold demand for +1 relations; built 3 hindu missionaries in the E end of the main continent, redirected 2 galleons over there. Build some spies. Put spies in Mainz, Pusan, and Namp'o. Redirected EP points to Charlemagne. Swapped to Hinduism, gifted Mainz to Charles, used spies already there to swap him to Hinduism as well.
That got me open borders with him, and I sent my three missionaries off to Mansa and Freddy; failed once in Cologne and got it first-try in Walata to give them both Hinduism. Now all civs had Hinduism.
Swapped to Buddhism, gifted Namp'o to Monty, swapped him to Organized Religion, discovered he was already in Buddhism so I saved a spy there (had spies for that too if needed).
Gifted more pop to Monty so he went up for U.N. General Secretary instead of me, so I could vote for him for +2 diplo. (got -1 diplo though from more close borders tension, so only +1 net).
AP resolution choices popped up, chose diplo. victory, voted for myself, so did Monty. Had 66% of the vote, Monty gave another 20%, ended up with well over 75% of the vote.

Ok, so you happened to have a position that was amenable to AP Cheese. That said... besides that one loophole, that save was pretty hopeless. Way behind in tech, way behind in land/pop, an opponent about to win and nothing you can do about it (he had tanks, fighters, and bombers, you had rifles and cannons). So there were some mis-steps earlier in the game you might want to address.

 

[Heavymachinegun]

Fortunately, you can win within 12 turns.

Wasted one turn hitting end-turn just to measure Mansa's culture per turn to figure out how many turns I had to work with.
Gave in to Monty's gold demand for +1 relations; built 3 hindu missionaries in the E end of the main continent, redirected 2 galleons over there. Build some spies. Put spies in Mainz, Pusan, and Namp'o. Redirected EP points to Charlemagne. Swapped to Hinduism, gifted Mainz to Charles, used spies already there to swap him to Hinduism as well.
That got me open borders with him, and I sent my three missionaries off to Mansa and Freddy; failed once in Cologne and got it first-try in Walata to give them both Hinduism. Now all civs had Hinduism.
Swapped to Buddhism, gifted Namp'o to Monty, swapped him to Organized Religion, discovered he was already in Buddhism so I saved a spy there (had spies for that too if needed).
Gifted more pop to Monty so he went up for U.N. General Secretary instead of me, so I could vote for him for +2 diplo. (got -1 diplo though from more close borders tension, so only +1 net).
AP resolution choices popped up, chose diplo. victory, voted for myself, so did Monty. Had 66% of the vote, Monty gave another 20%, ended up with well over 75% of the vote.

Ok, so you happened to have a position that was amenable to AP Cheese. That said... besides that one loophole, that save was pretty hopeless. Way behind in tech, way behind in land/pop, an opponent about to win and nothing you can do about it (he had tanks, fighters, and bombers, you had rifles and cannons). So there were some mis-steps earlier in the game you might want to address.

WOOOW! Could you post a save, please? I never won by diplomacy, I have to learn this trick.

By the way, @barbertje, unfortunately I have not a post-egyptian-war save... I have only this middle-war save (turn 106/500):

Spoiler :

View attachment Prometheus II BC-0225.CivBeyondSwordSave

Do you have a more effective strategy? (possibly without risking Mansa's cultural victory at the end, like I did... )

 

[Smilingrogue]

Been slogging through this one. This has to be the worst Fractal "Screw you, player!" maps I have seen. If you are having trouble with this one, OP, don't lose heart.

For anyone interested

Spoiler :

We start on one end of the continent with only Hatty on it. No problem, easy to roll over her, right? She starts in the middle of the continent, with a TONNE of land to her East that she will easily block off thanks to her creative trait and religion founding. She is easy enough to get to friendly thanks to shared religion and OR. But trading with her seems like a greater evil than being isolated with Toku as she techs like a beast thanks to her shrines and might easily run away.

We have one source of Iron for start resources, no food, no cottageable land, little happiness and Hatty's land is not all that great either. I am around turn 200 and trying to put Hatty down. I read Fractal will sometimes mess up a Civ, I have seen it in action now. Will play this one out and post as time permits.

 

[Ghpstage]

Do you have a more effective strategy? (possibly without risking Mansa's cultural victory at the end, like I did... )

The basic idea of killing people was fine, the execution is what let you down.

Looking at your city placement, I would have placed Antium to grab the clam to the south along with the cow to get production up and running quickly, and Cumae, well, the existance of that city in that location is mind boggling!
I would have placed my third city to pick up the clams to the west of the capital.
As you would have known early that you would want to rush, you should have been looking for sites with short term production potential, seafood for whipping and cow tiles are your best sources here.

Your first 2 cities also seem to have been settled pretty slowly, 2400BC is slow for a first with a non Imp leader! and 1360BC for a junk third city when you intend on rushing is poor, it would have been better not to build it at all!

PHASE 2, objective: get Galleons to cross the oceans
Tactic: Get Currency, improve economy, DO NOT EXPAND (to save money and science rate), beeline to Optics, discover the other continent by Caravels, beeline to Astronomy, trade Astronomy with some military techs (Engineering and Feudalism).

While making contact is good when isolated, going for Optics/Astro is expensive, its not really something you should do when you have no economy at all! You would have been better served by getting CoL, Civil Service and Monarchy and filling up you continent with cities.

You didn't make the best use of Astro when you got it either, you didn't have enough cities to really make huge amounts from trade routes, you didn't open borders with enough AI to make all your few trade routes foreign overseas ones, and didn't trade resources to deal with your problems.
You then magnified this mistake tenfold by attacking the overseas weakling while your economy was still more or less non existant, while you had plenty of space on your own continent to fill.....

In the last save, no Education as of 1920AD says pretty much everything that needs to be said . Interesting to see that you can have Physics without it though!

Learn to use specialists to generate Great People, they are very powerful tools to boost your economy and may have been able to dig you out of this mess at some points.

Theres a lot more to improve, like worker micro, but i'd say these a the most prominent issues.

 

[Revent]

I figure AP cheese should be possible! Just whip out a missionary of AP religion and send to each AI
You have 24 turns to do that though or less.

 

[Heavymachinegun]

The basic idea of killing people was fine, the execution is what let you down.

Looking at your city placement, I would have placed Antium to grab the clam to the south along with the cow to get production up and running quickly, and Cumae, well, the existance of that city in that location is mind boggling!

Uhm, for the 2° city I chose the river tiles, rather than the desert ones. They gave me more gold to substain the over-expansion after the rush. I might be wrong, can you post some example saves?

Your first 2 cities also seem to have been settled pretty slowly, 2400BC is slow for a first with a non Imp leader! and 1360BC for a junk third city when you intend on rushing is poor, it would have been better not to build it at all!

My strat was early war. I founded three cities to build Preats in parallel, not to expand.

While making contact is good when isolated, going for Optics/Astro is expensive, its not really something you should do when you have no economy at all! You would have been better served by getting CoL, Civil Service and Monarchy and filling up you continent with cities.

Why do you want to colonize the desert? Actually, I intentionally chose not to expand. I think it is not the case for this map. In my previous game (same map) I did what you suggested, but this strategy failed. Unfortunately the continent is not very rich. No grassland, no river, etc... In other words, you colonize the desert. This only slows you down. I did it at a later stage of the game because I needed land for domination victory. But since AP victory is possible, why bothering with sand?

You didn't make the best use of Astro when you got it either, you didn't have enough cities to really make huge amounts from trade routes, you didn't open borders with enough AI to make all your few trade routes foreign overseas ones, and didn't trade resources to deal with your problems.
You then magnified this mistake tenfold by attacking the overseas weakling while your economy was still more or less non existant, while you had plenty of space on your own continent to fill.....

Again, my strat was not to have a huge economy, or healthy cities, but to conquer fast. I think you cannot be richer than Mansa Musa, a financial leader with a big and rich piece of land, 4 holy cities, on Monarch difficulty... No matter what you do. But again, I might be wrong. Can you post some example saves?

In the last save, no Education as of 1920AD says pretty much everything that needs to be said . Interesting to see that you can have Physics without it though!

I don't need Education in my strategy, so I didn't tech it.

I figure AP cheese should be possible! Just whip out a missionary of AP religion and send to each AI
You have 24 turns to do that though or less.

I'm trying to repeat the awesome AP victory of coanda... But Monty won't vote for me!!! Damn him! I gave him tribute, a city and converted to his religion. Having the same religion civic gives an additional diplomatic bonus?

I think I can reach the same AP victory at an earlier stage of the game.

Coanda, please can you post a save?

 

[coanda]

I figure AP cheese should be possible! Just whip out a missionary of AP religion and send to each AI
You have 24 turns to do that though or less.

Actually, it's rather inconvenient. If you miss your first shot at a AP victory but get it on the second shot, you win it at the same time as Mansa Musa wins his cultural victory - meaning the game comes down to a coin flip. To have confidence in success, you must win on the 12-turn mark (or find some way of stalling Mansa for at least one turn; espionage changing his civics so he burns a turn in anarchy swapping back maybe).

Could you post a save, please? I never won by diplomacy, I have to learn this trick.

Here is a save from 1942 (the turn after the decisive vote; I actually had to play it through again quickly so there are some small differences). On the previous turn when people voted, I only had -2 border tension with Monty - not the current -3 in the save.

There are lots of guides on the forum for how Apostolic Palace works; this is probably the best nuts-and-bolts one: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452
Basic idea is you need to have <75% of the votes yourself, but be able to get at least 75% of the votes thanks to someone else voting for you.

As for the requirements to get AIs to vote for you, they must have relations of +8 or better with you, and must not like the other candidate more than you (if both candidates are below +8, they abstain; if at least one is above +8, they vote for the one they like better). Note that relations are complicated by a number of invisible factors, so simply because it adds up to +8 doesn't mean they actually are +8 with you. In this particular instance, I believe the relevant factors would be a -1 because he's Monty and is generally unfriendly, and a -1 because you're on Monarch - meaning you'd need a displayed +10 or higher to get his votes. In the save I posted I have +9, but the turn before that (when the vote happened) I had +10; as the cities I gifted to him came under more severe cultural pressure, it swapped from -2 border tension to -3, which pushed me below +10.

 

[Revent]

Actually, it's rather inconvenient. If you miss your first shot at a AP victory but get it on the second shot, you win it at the same time as Mansa Musa wins his cultural victory - meaning the game comes down to a coin flip. To have confidence in success, you must win on the 12-turn mark (or find some way of stalling Mansa for at least one turn; espionage changing his civics so he burns a turn in anarchy swapping back maybe).

Ouch! Inconvenient indeed. Anyway, I gave this a shot. The 12 turn thing was indeed an issue so I built wealth for 6 turns to buy some spies and missionaries to rush them out. I switched over to Vassalage and Buddhism and gifted Charles like 2000 gold to get open borders. Put missionaries in all the cities and gifted I think three cities to Monty. He didn't vote for me first go but luckily, I had spies prepared and revolted Djenne and then changed civics to nationhood for extra time. Following that, I declared war on Mansa Musa and then bribed in Monty to get the war bonus

Spoiler :

Edit: Also got a golden age via two burned GP's, so before it ended, I switched back to Hinduism.

 

[Heavymachinegun]

As for the requirements to get AIs to vote for you, they must have relations of +8 or better with you, and must not like the other candidate more than you (if both candidates are below +8, they abstain; if at least one is above +8, they vote for the one they like better). Note that relations are complicated by a number of invisible factors, so simply because it adds up to +8 doesn't mean they actually are +8 with you. In this particular instance, I believe the relevant factors would be a -1 because he's Monty and is generally unfriendly, and a -1 because you're on Monarch - meaning you'd need a displayed +10 or higher to get his votes. In the save I posted I have +9, but the turn before that (when the vote happened) I had +10; as the cities I gifted to him came under more severe cultural pressure, it swapped from -2 border tension to -3, which pushed me below +10.

So the "trick" here is to have +10 or more from Monty and make him hate Mansa for some reason (our mutual military assistance...) I have to try again!! I didn't think diplo victory were so complicated and funny!!!

I think the same victory is reachable 50 turns before. Please, someone could try diplo victory starting from this save?

 

[Ghpstage]

Uhm, for the 2° city I chose the river tiles, rather than the desert ones. They gave me more gold to substain the over-expansion after the rush.

Its not a choice to take desert over river, its a decision to settle a city that will be productive much faster. In the time frame involved in rushing the desert will play no role whatsoever, and nor will having plenty of riverside tiles as the happy cap is so low. When rushing time is critical so what you really need is fast access to production tiles, which are primarily food and hammer resources.

My strat was early war. I founded three cities to build Preats in parallel, not to expand.

Then why did you settle a third city that was worse than worthless?
Settling your cities earlier would have expanded your commerce and hammer base for a longer period of time.

Why do you want to colonize the desert? Actually, I intentionally chose not to expand. I think it is not the case for this map. In my previous game (same map) I did what you suggested, but this strategy failed. Unfortunately the continent is not very rich. No grassland, no river, etc... In other words, you colonize the desert. This only slows you down. I did it at a later stage of the game because I needed land for domination victory.

Not everything is about cottaging riverside grass tiles.
A city is generally going to be worthwhile provided it has a food resource, in your game there are 2 clams and 4 fish you haven't settled till much later than 1000AD, and one of those fish is would have a city claiming it, a plains cow and several floodplains.....

While the land in this game isn't quite as bad there are real parallels between your position, the position of its OP and the actual situation ingame.

But since AP victory is possible, why bothering with sand?

AP victory is almost always possible and is by far the easiest victory condition to meet, so much so that its often shunned as nothing but cheese and avoided unless absolutely necessary (which in your later saves it was)

Again, my strat was not to have a huge economy, or healthy cities, but to conquer fast. I think you cannot be richer than Mansa Musa, a financial leader with a big and rich piece of land, 4 holy cities, on Monarch difficulty... No matter what you do. But again, I might be wrong. Can you post some example saves?

You've missed something fundamental here, your economy is what underpins everything in your empire. It researches your techs, it pays your maintenance and produces your units, unless you expect the game to end with very little more effort then ignoring it is simpy not an option!
And yes you can outtech Mansa on Monarch, its fairly easy to do so in fact. Though I don't know how difficult this map will make it I can't see any reason to not be within trading range of the tech race.
Hopefully I will be able to find a forum game I played to show this later/tomorrow.

I don't need Education in my strategy, so I didn't tech it.

If a game lasts beyond 1920AD then not having Education is simply bad strategy...

Hopefully I will have some time over the weekend to play a shadow from 4000BC

 

[Heavymachinegun]

While the land in this game isn't quite as bad there are real parallels between your position, the position of its OP and the actual situation ingame.

I'll try this game. But I think my position is even worse! I'm surrounded by ocean! No possibilities of land war for a while! (after egyptian war of course)

AP victory is almost always possible and is by far the easiest victory condition to meet, so much so that its often shunned as nothing but cheese and avoided unless absolutely necessary (which in your later saves it was)

Really? To speak quite frankly... I'm trying it from thursday without succeeding...
It's quite complicated! The tactic foreseens:
1) Convert 1 city of each civ to hinduism. This require open border agreements. Alternatively, give them a city already converted (like in the case of Holy Romans).
2) Make everything is needed to get diplomacy bonus versus 1 civ (Monty, in this case): give him a city (+4), give him tributes (+1), switch to his religion (cancels -3 and adds +1), and vote for him at the UN secretary election (+2). I even tried to switch to police state, which is his favourite civic (+1).
It's not simple at all..... For example, what happens if Monty asks me to cancel the deals with Mansa? If I say "yes", I will lose the open borders with Mansa. If I say "no", I will get a -1 diplomacy with Monty.

Hopefully I will be able to find a forum game I played to show this later/tomorrow.

[...]

Hopefully I will have some time over the weekend to play a shadow from 4000BC

WOW! Really? I will be happy to learn your strategy! Will you go for domination victory? (my favourite)

 

[Mylene]

No need for deep thinking, your mistake was in the beginning
You fell for cheesy Praets, instead of doing what would really have helped you on this map:
building GLH, Pyras..

Monarch Ramsy is such a friendly and harmless AI, why rush him and ignoring all the goodies your leader and Rome offer?

 

[Heavymachinegun]

No need for deep thinking, your mistake was in the beginning
You fell for cheesy Praets, instead of doing what would really have helped you on this map:
building GLH, Pyras..

Monarch Ramsy is such a friendly and harmless AI, why rush him and ignoring all the goodies your leader and Rome offer?

Because if I don't rush him, I will have only 1m x 1m deserty land for me... Have you checked the starting positions?

 

[Heavymachinegun]

As for the requirements to get AIs to vote for you, they must have relations of +8 or better with you, and must not like the other candidate more than you (if both candidates are below +8, they abstain; if at least one is above +8, they vote for the one they like better). Note that relations are complicated by a number of invisible factors, so simply because it adds up to +8 doesn't mean they actually are +8 with you. In this particular instance, I believe the relevant factors would be a -1 because he's Monty and is generally unfriendly, and a -1 because you're on Monarch - meaning you'd need a displayed +10 or higher to get his votes. In the save I posted I have +9, but the turn before that (when the vote happened) I had +10; as the cities I gifted to him came under more severe cultural pressure, it swapped from -2 border tension to -3, which pushed me below +10.

No way. I started from this 1910 save, I have +10 with Monty but he still abstains at the 1932 polling day.

 

[Mylene]

Not saying you cannot take his cities bit later, but sending an army of Praets as pretty much only goal during the first 100 turns will not get you very far.
And you did not even settle one of your best spots yet, you need to understand that these powerful wonders (you could have gotten for very cheap) make 5 cities look much better than 10 without them.

 

[coanda]

I don't think your strategy was deeply flawed; your execution was the big show-stopper.

I've tried a moderately sloppy playthrough myself deliberately trying to stick with your strategy (praet rush Ramses, beeline Astronomy as fast as possible, meet other continent), and it looks fine to me.

The praet rush is certainly a defensible move; personally I'd probably have leaned more towards praetorians + catapults a bit later along so you can get a couple early wonders and such first (although given that it's Monarch, you can actually get away with a pretty halfhearted Praet rush like I did in exchange for some of those goodies).

The Astro beeline is arguable; I'd have leaned towards focusing a bit more on my own economy given how much land was available, but you're right that half of that land is pure garbage so it's understandable to want to sail away... and it might even be the right move. Certainly an all-out Astro beeline is overkill though; there are a couple good city spots on the far east of your continent you definitely ought to have picked up.

Killing the other continent once you meet them... depends entirely on how well the other continent is doing, but is not a bad first guess at a plan. In my play-through, it's a reasonable option (I'm basically tied for first in production, I have a tech lead, and they're already embroiled in some pretty bloody internal wars anyways). In your playthrough... it may have been too late to go it alone, and you might have needed to try and arrange a dogpile against Mansa Musa to keep him from running away with the game like he eventually did.

Regarding my shot at it:
My Praet rush finished a couple turns before yours did, and I built Pyramids and popped a Great Scientist along the way. I got Astronomy on turn 147 off 3 great-scientist bulbs (went straight from the Classical Age to the Renaissance Age all in one turn), and by turn 155 had met everyone (I think) and gotten a look at the tech situation. While I lacked Philosophy, Theology, and Feudalism (which are each held by a different AI as a monopoly tech), I had Literature, Code of Laws, Machinery, and the entire Compass -> Optics -> Astronomy line as monopoly techs of my own. My empire is a very close second in production, and first in size, commerce, and food; I've got a half-dozen cities that I settled recently (once it was clear that settling them wouldn't noticeably delay Astronomy) which will be growing and becoming productive soon.

At this point... I could get Engineering in about 10 turns, and be hitting them with Trebuchets and Praetorians in about 25 turns. Since only one of them has Feudalism (the same one I traded Code of Laws to) and the rest lack Feudalism, Machinery, and Code of Laws, I might well end up fighting archers, axes, and swords with praets and trebuchets... which would be an easy conquest; if I picked up Feudalism myself, I could probably chain-capitulate the continent pretty readily.

I could settle in to strengthen my economy (which is fairly weak, because of the "Astronomy or bust" push), tech along to Liberalism, and come at them perhaps 40-50 turns down the line with cannons and muskets, likely against longbows and maces. Again, an extremely easy conquest.

I could cottage up my continent, and head on out to an eventual Spaceship victory.

Or I could just call it a game, because I'm not terrible interested in finishing it out from here. This is the option I'm going with.

If Ghpstage ever gives it a shot, his save would be the one you'd want to really dissect. I was rather sloppy (playing with some distractions in the background), and he's just a better player than me too. That said, I've attached a couple saves from my playthrough for you to browse through if you're curious. Turn 99 (in the middle of killing Egypt), turn 133 (in the final push towards Astronomy), and turn 156 (a final snapshot).