I went 4-city Tradition, and just turtled until artillery, great war bombers, and infantry. Because of the terrain surrounding Venice I didn't think I could do it with longbowmen. It might be doable with ships of the line, but I didn't think of that. Once I had about 4 GWBs, 6 infantry, and 4 artillery, I sieged Venice and took it pretty quickly. I had a slight tech lead at that point, but only by one or two techs over China.
I was able to build the Brandenburg Gate and Eiffel Tower in London. Later on I built Prora, the Hubble and the Pentagon in Nottingham, which had production just as good as London due to a hydro plant. If I settled in place I could have built a hydro plant in London, but I moved to the hill, so that was out. Hastings built Neuschwanstein with a Great Engineer because I really needed the castle happiness.
(Aside: One of the things I don't like about Liberty is the lack of ability to buy Great Engineers. In my opinion, the people most worth faith buying are scientists, engineers, and writers/musicians (if culture victory), but I often don't finish Rationalism, and then what should I do with my faith if I'm Liberty and I'm not going for culture?)
I took Autocracy (at that point I had 6 Tradition, 2 Rationalism and 5 Honor in preparation for the war to come) and went for +25% damage from wounded units and -33% cost to purchase units. I have mostly gone Freedom and Order in my previous games because I generally don't fight aggressive wars. Autocracy seems strange to me in the most of the levels 1 tenets seem pretty bad, but there are a bunch of amazing level 2 tenets.
I didn't even bother taking the +25% attack bonus level 3 tenet because once I started my wars I was basically just looking for happiness and nothing else. I ended up with 3 level 2 tenets (barracks happiness, +25% production and XP for new units, and lower unit maintenance). Perhaps if there were more militaristic city-states in this game that tenet could have been good. I ended up with 6 Tradition, 2 Rationalism, 6 Honor, 6 Commerce, 7 Autocracy and 2 Exploration (needed happiness from sea buildings).
Arabia and the Maya were fighting, so I took advantage of the distraction to attack Arabia while he was occupied. After a few turns of fighting around Narjan, I took that city, then Damascus and Mecca fell fairly quickly. I extorted 200 gpt from Harun for peace and attacked the Maya, wiping out half their army before they even got a turn. I took over the large Mayan cities without losing anything more than 1 infantry. (I lost nothing against Venice and about 3-4 infantry and one artillery against Arabia.) I got 50 gpt for peace from Pacal, and started my troops walk back down to my home territory for D-Day against the Chinese and Mongols.
On the other continent, Russia was Autocracy and friends with me. China and Mongolia were Order and had denounced me, as had Freedom Persia. Russia and Mongolia were at war, as were China and Persia. Their troops were inland, making the coast an easy conquest.
Having the honor/commerce/autocracy tenets, I was able to buy 3-promotion battleships and carriers really cheaply. I attacked Xian with 1 destroyer, 8 battleships and three carriers supporting my 13 bombers, which at this point had logistics/air repair/siege 3. I took it in one turn, then moved inland to attack Guangzhou. However, Karakorum was very tempting and 4 tiles away, so on the next turn I just blasted it with my battleships and moved the destroyer in for the capture. Genghis had been getting pummeled by Russia so he was already weak.
I then marched my infantry and rocket artillery through China, moving towards Beijing. Unfortunately the three wonders I really wanted, Notre Dame, Machu Picchu and the Statue of Liberty, were in Persepolis, so geography dictated I wouldn't get those wonders until the game ended. When you have 13 bombers with logistics, cities fall quickly. I was starting to feel the unhappiness from puppeting 4 large cities, so I had to burn a great scientist on Refrigeration and rush-buy stadiums in my 4 core cities. After hitting Rocketry and Satellites my next goal was Stealth. China was 1 tech behind me, but I had taken most of their large cities so their scientific progress was about to come to a screeching halt.
I attacked Russia before even taking Beijing, because my troops were already in position and you only need a few infantry to actually take and hold a city if the bombers are doing the long-range dirty work. Due to happiness issues, I decided not to conquer Novgorod. I simply marched around it, pillaging as I went. I sent two carriers of bombers and 4 tanks north to attack Rostov. During this time I took Beijing and made peace with China for 50 gpt or something like that. After Rostov and Moscow fell, I made peace with Russia. For some reason she refused to give me any money even though I could easily have wiped her out.
I sent all my troops south to my new Chinese additions to the English empire, and hit Stealth two turns before the attack on Persia was scheduled to begin. I burned two great generals on citadels to move my borders to immediately adjacent to Persepolis. He complained, but what is he going to do, declare war on me? Hardly. This meant I had a tank sitting right next to Persepolis. When I declared war, 20 or so attacks from stealth bombers brought the city to 0, and my tank finished the world domination.
Question for experienced warmongers: Is it better to annex good cities after resistance ends and buy a courthouse, or is it better just to leave them as puppets? I left every conquered city this game as a puppet, but I wonder if annexing the enemy capitals might have been worth it. You would get a minor happiness bonus (more if you take the lvl 2 courthouse tenet in Autocracy) and remove the -25% culture and science penalty. On the other hand, your culture costs per new policy would go up. (Science is the same whether you puppet or annex apparently.) Also, I did not raze a single city this game, with the exception of a city China settled to my south down below Ur. I wanted that city off the map even though razing it was a brutal temporary hit to my happiness. Razing cities is OK if you aren't using bombers, but I needed the cities for airbases so I couldn't really raze them.
The first three pictures are from before I took Persepolis, which will explain the differences in numbers at the top from the last picture.
