Bribed Ragnar on Hannibal early. Good old Ragnar just stomped him, although Hannibal had techlead and 8 citys. He then stomped Sitting Bull on the other side of the map, like he was cheating xd
Libbed Nationalism in 300 AD, because Darius had Education already and i had to play safe. Then went golden age and teched MT+GP while getting a great merchant.
Then i decided to go culture, because Ragnar had 2 vassals already as mentioned and my target Darius vasseled to Sury in 600 AD(holy war was declared on Darius), so i stood there with 20 freshly upgraded War Elephants and had no one to attack without fighting endless stacks of deity ai units.
So i gifted Ragnar a city and had 3 friendly AIs on my side, since i know how to please stubborn girls like Isabella(she was on her way to space with 24 citys and sury as vassal and had 1 legendary city in the end).
My 2 commerce citys were legendary 16xx AD, but i had trouble with the great artists, since i went lib->cuirassiers and had some other GPs already, so it took me very long to finish the job with 7 great artists and 1 unlucky great spy(that's what the computer always works when you don't pay attention
)
Also no marble, no chapel obv, but 3 religions did the job.
Isabella and her early religon won the game for me in the diplomacy section^^
I really wanted to make an attempt for a military victory, but seems like this map is really made for culture, even without marble.
€: Oh yes and we had stone right? GW? Mids?...nah...