I did two things that helped slow the tech down. First, I followed them in research staying behind them by not going all out. This allowed me to buy techs at 2nd civ prives pretty cheap and then trade them for the other techs I didn't have that would have been passed around pretty quickly. I therefore made back the money I spent on my "useless" research and kept the tech pace slower. The second thing I did was too pre-build for the GL and then snag it. This allowed me to totally turn off research untilthe Chinese finally sold Education. I then began following them up the tech tree and when I finally attacked them, I went ahead as all of their research came to a stand still.
My conquests went a different direction than I had originally intended, but I changed it once I got a world map and got the complete picture. The first to die were the Americans. The second were the Persians. Both of these civs were taken out using swords, and there weren't any horses running around the landmass. I switched to horsemen to take out the Aztecs as I knew that Knights were just around the corner. The Persians were nice enough to kick off my GA by attacking with an archer right after I had switched to republic. I hand built the FP in Washington, as this gave me a big poost quicker. I had planned on moving the palace slightly north at a later date but didn't get a leader to be able to this until after it didn't matter. IIRC, I only got 3 leaders the whole game and two were used on wonders and one for a knight army. Persia was left with one city in the Iroquois lands and they gave me a city on one of the islands. The Aztecs were left with one city on one of the islands and also gave me a city there.
At the end of the Aztec conquest knights came in. I had more than enough money to upgrade my 20+ knights as I was spending nothing on research. I immediately went after the Iroquois and kicked them of to another city on one of the islands. I also got a city from them down there as well. About the time I had finished off the Aztecs, the Chinese had finished the Germans and started in on the Greeks. I gave the Greeks plenty of support to slow the Chinese down by giving them critical techs and supplying them with free luxes. By the time I had finished off the Iroquois and the last Persian city (they had lost their island city to the Aztecs) I was ready to hit the Chinese. The Chinese had taken their complete island but they had not built up the culture so their were gaps in their lands.
I loaded up Caravels and shipped over all of the knights that had taken out the Iroquois and Persians. I took all new knights and put them in a city to the east with caravels ready to ship them to the other end of China (the developed end). I thought I was going to have to wait for some agreements to expire, but China got nervous with 20+ knights and 5+ Muskets in their midst. After they declared war, I took the nearest city and let the Chinese attack. This did two things. It allowed me to rush a barracks and Harbor, and they pulled all of their troops east to attack me while I waited to upgrade to Cav. Once Cav hit, I upgraded all the knights in the new city. I also upgraded all of the knights waiting to be loaded. My new Cav with the Knight army proceeded to take all of the former lands of Greece and then the units on the caravels landed at the other end. Attacking from both ends finished the Chinese off. Unfortunately, they came sueing for peace and I hit the wrong button when they were down to 4 cities. I then was going to be forced to wait 20 turns to finish them off. (I know I could have reloaded but I hate to do that for any reason, call it a random event). The caravels that were ferrying troops across to China then set sail for the islands. The Iroquois were down to one city, the Aztecs down to 2, and the Greeks held two. The closest was the Iroquois so I proceeded to take their only city. The interturn gave me domination. So, my misclick added about 5 turns to the game geting the troops to that one city. (+/-5 as I wasn't paying attention to border expansions in cities were I was rushing temple and libraries).
So, as a short answer after that, I left the piddle on the islands and hit the Chinese from both ends. Something the AI can't handle.