I did a 4 city tradition start with NC at 2 cities. The start was very slow, I did not manage to steal a single worker, and got NC and Education late (I don't remember the exact turns, I think 90s for NC and 120s for education). Building work boats really slows you down. I profited from the fact that I had some map knowledge and did not build scouts, but 2 quinqueremes instead. I had a previously failed liberty attempt.
As soon as I researched Navigation and had Total War (I was first to Autocracy even though I was 4th to an ideology), I started war. I always went with another AI against someone. I never had a war with more than one AI at a time.
Fist war was against Ottomans (I had Russia to help me). Got 2 capitals and resurrected Songhai. I fought with frigates and not a single land unit.
For the next wars I got Japan to help me, because they were my friends (we both went Autocracy).
The next target was the Maya. I started with frigates but in that same turn I upgraded them so I finished with battleships. I had Riflemen and GWI to capture the capital.
I got Russia next because they were already in the information era, while the others were in modern era. That war was very fast as they had little navy around. It eventually lead to their fall, and they did not pose any threat
The next target was Korea. I managed to get a city quick but after that it was a disaster. They went on the top tech tree and already had nuclear subs, while I did not have a single unit that was able to detect subs. Eventually I stole the tech for subs and I put a stop to my casualties. But they destroyed more than half my army, a lot of range+logistics battleships. I eventually nuked them and got 4 cities with bomber support. This was the longest war, excluding the Ottomans, when I did not have a heavily promoted military.
After that I headed my remaining army for Assur, and in my final turn I blitzed Assur with a nuke + bombers, and backstabbed Japan, used 3 nukes on Kyoto and captured it on that same turn.
I had a low culture the entire game, I only managed to finish Tradition, open exploration, and put 2 policies in Rationalism before Ideologies. Eventually I got the happiness policy from exploration because I had immense pressure from both Russia and Korea. Japan helped a bit, but at some points I was in Revolutionary Wave.
The rest of the policies were put in Autocracy. I winded up having three level 2 tenants and a level 3 one. Late game I just used my other policies for gold so I opened commerce and got a 3rd one in rationalism.
During war I sold a lot of cities to japan to help with both happiness and gold. I also razed some cities as I did not want Japan to get too strong. Even so in the late game they were very close to a science win.
I tried to get a good pantheon, production from boats but that was taken so I got DF, which did not help me get a religion. I did manage to get a faith GE and rush Hubble.
I did not care too much for science, after education I beelined the war techs: Navigation, Flight, Electronics, Rocketry, Advanced Ballistics and Nanotechnology. I had an early RA with Songhai but it failed because they were eliminated, and another 2 with Russia and Japan.
I used Oxford for Plastics in order to get a greater value from bulbing, but the rest of the techs were stolen from Russia, Korea, and Japan.
I also did not build a single wonder, until late game when I grabbed Prora, Hubble, and Louvre because I had nothing else to do but march my army to Assyria.