OK, got some more time now to spend on this.
LINCOLN: Useless UU/UB for us. Starts with fishing and agriculture. Philosophical and Charismatic. Double Great Person Point generation and cheap universities. Troops upgrade at 2xp/4xp/8xp/13xp/20xp/28xp/38xp. +1 happy bonus/+1 additional happy with monuments.
Fastest finishes for HOF normal/emperor games:
Domination - 750BC *25 settlers placed on the 3rd to last turn (No barbs obviously)
Religious - 450BC
Conquest - 940AD
Diplo - 1270AD
Culture - 1530AD
Space - 1685AD
REFERENCE GUIDES
Great People Bulbing List -
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952
General Purpose Reference -
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144897
Emperor Maintenance Costs:
1st City - None
2nd Ctiy - 1.22 # of cities, 1.29 distance, 1 Civic upkeep = 3.51 total
3rd City - 2.64 # of cities, 3.01 distance, 3 Civic upkeep = 8.65 total
4th City - 4.64 # of cities, 4.39 distance, 4 Civic upkeep = 13.03 total
5th City - 7.15 # of cities, 5.77 distance, 7 Civic upkeep = 19.92 total
*fluctuates a bit according to city sizes but generally accurate.
Dom Victory
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With no vassals and 8 AI, domination might be faster than conquest.
For a rough estimate, on turn 0 when the capital is settled, count the number of land tiles within cultural borders. Settling 1W yields 7 land tiles on turn 0. Press F8 and see how far that initial settling gets you towards dom limit.
If it 1% already, map is small. If it 0.4% map is big. Take that number and divide by 7 to get dom% per tile. Then just 60%dom limit/%per tile to see roughly how many tiles needed for domination victory. Perhaps this is 800 tiles. 21 land tiles per big fat cross, and you need roughly 40 cities spaced out evenly to win a domination victory.
The 750BC HOF dom victory was achieved by settling 25 settlers on the same turn, and using caste system artist + Stonehenge to pop all borders within 2 turns.
Normal Speed
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Normal speed affects wars, espionage, and whipping in subtle ways, compressing them a bit harshly compared to epic speed.
A medic unit is vital. March and medic II become useful. The first GG should almost always go towards a super medic in my opinion.
Espionage missions are kind of crippled by the fast pace and lack of scaling.
Whipping is weakened, in the sense that you still have to wait one turn before whipping no matter the speed, but the hammers/turn has to be manually lowered that one turn on faster speeds much more often to get proper 2pop whips. A +20 hammer city makes a unit every turn on quick speed, but that same city makes 20% of a unit on marathon and can 2 pop whip the next turn. High hammer cities, Heroic Epic and Aposolistic palace+monastaries+temples get stronger on the faster speeds.
Fast Rush vs. Slow Rush
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I don't like chariot rushes on normal speed because archers can decimate them sometimes with superior str and first strikes. Axe/Sword/Horse archers rushes are much more successful I think. Emperor AI gets enough bonuses that it can be more beneficial to let them build up a bit before running them over with military.
My favorite early tech on emperor is Alphabet, as the AI's are usually too slow to get it themselves, but fast enough to have a lot of techs for trade once reached. Alphabet also allows the ending of early wars with a tech, or starting one between neighbors with a bribe which is awesome under no vassals. It also allows cities to produce research and build spies.
Purposely gifting techs to the AI's can also speed up the game's pace if desired.
Bulbing/Oracle Gambits
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There are many of these we could do. We could ignore civil service/theocracy/meditation and try to bulb early astronomy with great scientists. Or we could bulb math and oracle construction. Or we could oracle metal casting, whip a forge, run an engineer, use the GE produced 17 turns later to build the pyramids, and use the 2nd GE produced 20 turns after that to bulb engineering for city destroying trebs/fast roads.
Last Thoughts
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I'd really recommend trying a practice game with 8 random AI and lincoln for 30 minutes just to see what it is like. Nothing helps clear the mind and get a sense of timing better than a good practice game.
I've looked all over for info on random AI's and near as I can tell no one uses that setting. What appears to happen is that Hatty can get Monty's personality, or Shaka can get Isabella's. I'll see what more I can find out about this.
Also, I love stealing a worker at the start. Settling the 2nd city close to the first so it can share food and hills can remove the need for a monument. The 3rd city can pop its borders with the Oracle, also skipping a monument.