The new 860ad start is better than old one, because now we get more techs.
Founded SE of starting point... on the apple hill. I had to found capital in the first turn, otherwise I get no worker in second turn. 2nd settler settled Lyon. Civics: all 2nd line.
0% research first. Conquered Marseilles with mercenaries, then Barcelona, then Milan. Then I used remaining mercs to raze Toulouse and Augsburg.
France was unstable on my spawn, and lost Bordeaux to viking barbs. They collapsed around 900AD and respawned around 1000.
Founded Verdun, Amerstdam and Liege. Germany DoWed to me on spawn, later they vassalized.
I captured Genova too. They had only 2 crossbowmen. They built cities on islands so they stayed alive, and later vassalized to me.
Won Jerusalem on the first crusade. Arabs got only 3 crossbowmen in Al-Quds. On the turn I captured Jerusalem, Arab army stroke back, only 1 catapult remained alive in the city, and I made peace on the second turn. AI problem -- they were absolutely outpower to my invading army, but they agreed peace, with my sole catapult.
Arab collapsed later.
I also sent army to raze Palermo, then sent a settler to resettle SE of Palermo (Agrigento), the best tile in Sicily. It takes so many turns to get some army to Levant. In late-game I conquered Alexanderia and Cairo, for rice, incense and cotton.
After Germany vassalized to me I kept stealing techs from them. English and Poland also became my vassal.
I found that religious law is better than bureaucracy in early-mid game. Amerstdam could use that many priests.
Cordoba remained weak and collapsed around 1400. Portugal died too. Spain was the first to discover Astronomy, and built the free tech wonder before me. Didn't matter, because I was going to won the UHV anyway.
French massed a lot of army after they respawned. They had around 20+ units in Nevers, next to my capital, I had only 2-4 units in each of my main city. And French is annoyed to me, but they never declared war. Fear my vassal? Anyway, AI is not aggressive enough. With that army they can blitz my core area, but they just turtled.
Beside that, I think this is a balanced game. If AI was smarter it could be hard, yet still not impossible, for I just have to build force and claim luxury resources.