I settled on the PH because I was far from AH and didn't want to worry about the cow. Wounds up settling on copper. That did put the cow in a strange position though. My first site was the north, to grab wheat and the (sloppily unpictured) stone. I popped a greenhill silver to help considerably with getting through the early techs. Third site was to get the fish, and wound up working silver pretty much until bureau.
Here's just before 1AD. I just picked up iron working after sitting on Alpha for years. Lucky to have it. Tech path was alpha-currency (just so I could build useful stuff with all my hammers), then literature, then civil service. Justin settled on the eastern iron in an awkward spot, but wound up gifting me that city. I wasn't sure whether to take it, but I gave it a green farm and had it build wealth. It was still a net positive (maybe), and it wound up building some units with AP hammers. I really just didn't want Justin there. I took the barb city to the east in short order, which turned out to be a decent spot (came with several hamlets already).
Burger king declared on me, took Barca, then left it with a single spearman. I retook it, he showed up with more, retook it, then left it with a horse archer and an axe. I retook it again and bought peace, but it cost paper and philosophy, both monopoly techs. This sped up the AI, as philo made its rounds, at a time when I was kind of bottoming out research wise. Certainly having to whip units instead f building wealth and growing in preparation for caste golden age really hurt.
Tech picture during war with Charly:
I single-bulbed edu, then single bulbed Printing press, double bulbed chem and libbed steel. Used the music great artist, then a merchant and another artist for a double golden age to get to rifles. Then I turned on Police state and started making units. So I was kinda ready. Choices were to go for Wang Kon or for Sitting Bull. But Wang got a vassal shortly afterward, and Justin declared on SB. I backstabbed SB, hoping to cap SB before Justin could, but in order to buy him off I would have had to use Replaeable parts and gunpowder, and Justin almost had MT so I didn't want to give him Cuirs sooner than he would have had them. I just took one SB city, then tried to go for Wang real quick, but he forced peace with AP. I think defying would have ruined me, so I preferred to use the hammers to attack Justin-SB rather than try to go through Korea. Justin was closer as well.
So I was kinda left holding my junk until rifles. Soon I declared on Justin-SB, with a defensive stack in Barca and an offensive, Sherman-esque slash and burn stack through his eastern cities. This was my favorite part of the game. Oceans of cataphracts broke on barcelona, dying in the open field to Barrage-3 cannon and rifle fire. The eastern stack tore through him and sitting Bull unchecked until the northern attacks stopped, then I went on the offensive from Barca and that's when I knew I would win.
After Justin I took Charly (revenge!), but he bribed Wang in on me. I was afraid they would become a tandem, but Charly capped after one city, giving me 50% land or so and allowing me to focus everything on Wang-Brennus (Brennus never sent any units to me). Korean artillery was a problem, but I used a few cannon for collateral, then picked off the artillery with rifles once they were the top defenders. CR-3, barrage cannon can take pretty much anything. The saving grace of this map was slow AI teching and plenty of religious unrest. I had to sacrifice my standing with the world in order to make friends with Justin, but he was big and I didn't want to tango with cataphracts before I was ready, so I thought getting him to pleased was very important. From there it was just producing units, avoiding strike until I took the holy city. Pretty grindy, weird game but very fun.
