I downloaded the save right after it was released and played to exactly 500 AD in one session. I did not check to see what the settings were, so assumed that they were as indicated in the starting save thread. As such, I played under the assumption that aggressive AI and no goody huts where turned on. The former did not affect my game at all, and given that my starting warrior got eaten by a bear at about turn 10 (and that I was always going to build workboat first on this start), neither did the second. It did provide a bit of a “what’s that? Surprise!” moment when I later did indeed spot a hut, but will not have impacted my results in the least. For the record, I am writing this on Sunday the 16th, having played this session yesterday, and thus with my came currently on 500 AD, and will post it up at the time the first spoiler opens (at which point I will be more advanced in my game, given that I plan to play a session after finishing writing this.)
So, onto the game…
As soon as I saw the start location with the Ivory, and the nice food, combined with the expansive bonus, I decided that, if I had enough territory for an initial REX (which turned out to be the case), that I would forego the customary axe-rush, and instead put down 4 or so cities of my own, and feed my wonder addiction a bit before proceeding to introduce myself to my neighbors. The first point of hostilities would come when my cats and pachs would march through a neighbor, and the second conflict would feature the mighty conquistadors. So, that was the plan, how did reality work out?
As I imagine will be popular, I founded one the plains hill 1S of the start location, and began building a WB (using the 1F2H time to get it our asap). Set research to BW (through mining) with the idea of actually whipping a worker after the two workboats where at work. Sent the warrior exploring and he just made it to the general area of the Gold hill before being running into a hungry bear on turn 12. At least he had already scouted enough of that area to also see the stones, and I started dreaming of a pyramid powered specialist economy.
After the two WB, I injected a warrior (given that my first guy had died), and then whipped a worker, followed with two more warriors and then started on a settler for gold-stone city. I continued wheel and pottery after BW to get a granary up asap to drive the whip. Met the Arabs on turn 32, Russians on 42, Carthage on 51. Settler completed on 45 and went to found between the gold and stone.
I started researching agriculture and whipped a granary in Madrid as soon as available. After agriculture, I injected Masonry and Hunting to keep the 3 workers I now had busy improving things. Began another settler in 2170 BC, which I finished 5 turns later, and sent him towards the southern peninsula. By now I had scouted it and knew it contained:
-A copper city (with Fish and whale)
-A cow-Fish city on its northern shore.
-A clam-silk village in the south.
I proceeded to found all 3 of these, as well as one more city to the north-west of Madrid to grab silk and dye.
In the next phase, I managed to grab two wonders. I built the great wall in Madrid (for the TWO engineering points I expected to get. Forgot about the change in the patch. Had I realized it was only one, I would have skipped it. Barbs where not a big enough issue to warrant its construction), and the Pyramids!! in Gold-stone land in 790 BC.
Tech path went Archery, Writing (followed by putting a library up in Madrid to get scientist for the academy, and to allow for the G-library), Sailing, Alpha (traded for AH, Meditation, Priest.), Math (Iron in a trade, Iron in my land, but outside all fat crosses), construction in 325 BC. Cats and Pachs are going to say hello to someone really soon, and the lay of the land tells me that is Carthage. Research continued with CoL for the courthouses to pay for my soon to be expansive empire. . Sometime around now, Jewism spread to me, and I adopted it, spread it to a few cities, so that I could use organized religion for the courthouse building round.
In 505 BC, despite running two scientists, I popped a great engineer. I considered saving him for the great library, and perhaps should have, but running representation, the 3H and 6 Beakers from settling him, I figured, would get my rush going quite a bit quicker, so I plopped him down in MadridBy the time I was finished rexing and teching, and had the cats and pachs ready to go, Carthage had put up several nice cities… One on the NE of “MY” land mass, getting bananas, dyes, and a few other luxuries. Two on the cost on the west side of his Isthmus, which also had nice luxuries in them, and then one on the connecting isthmus, and two on the American land mass, including, obviously, the capital.
So, in 5AD, I declared war. I had two stacks. One of 2 cats and 2 pachs, which would take the nice banana city to the NE (two archers in defense) and then head up the Isthmus, and a second, of 3 cats, 3 pachs and 2 archers which would take the two eastern cities (total garrison = 1 sword, 1 spear, 1 axe, and 2 archers), and then head north. 3 more axes and 2 more pachs (and a couple of cats) being build now would arrive to join the northern push. The move was decisive and swift (well, as swift as you can be when elephants are involved):
5AD- border worker captured.
35- Captured Hippo
65- Captured Hadrumetum
110- Razed Thapsus (size one junk city which overlapped others)
185- Captured Kerkouane
185- Captures Leptis
245- Captured Utica
305- Captures Carthage
At this point, quite honestly, I was expecting the war to be over, Hannibal’s score to fall to zero, and to be told he was eliminated. That did not happen. Apparently, he must have another city somewhere. Perhaps it is inside US territory (I never got open borders with him, so still can only see a small fraction of it), or maybe he got off the continent somehow. I don’t know, and obviously don’t want to be searching for him while at war, so I rang him up to offer peace. I was blown away by his offer… He gave me Monarchy (which I don’t need), Horseback riding (which is on the path to my UU), and a few coins to spare his miserable existence. I was more than happy to accept.
During the war, met another civ (I wont mention which or where as it would be spoilerish). I also finally got a great scientist for an academy in Madrid. Moreover, I got both the G-library and Notre-Dame built in Madrid. Also, Saladin and Cathy decided to have a little war of their own, which suited me fine, since Cathy was starting to get annoyed that I would not GIVE her monopoly techs!)
I spent the rest of the time up to 500 AD consolidating this empire, building infrastructure and courthouse, and teching towards guilds. I currently hold 12 cities, am first in score, and doing decent on power and all other graphs. I am a dozen or so turns from my UU, and plan on using it to whip the Americans and possibly also Saladin from the world. I am presently building the forbidden palace in Carthage, on the current Spain-US border so that my economy can support the upcoming invasion.
There goes the plan. So now stop religion chase hoping all other civs get their own religion for some serious animosity. It sort of work out well.
was ready to claim the two Cities when around 200BC Cat Dowed 
with a single archer who got killed by a newly trained Axe. After holding back for a few turns to build some defenders, Izzy declare on Hanny and claim the two cities. A few turns later payed off Cat with some 40 plus gold for peace. In 275 AD Sally Dowed. Next turn sued for peace with Hanny for 300 plus gold and Went after Sally. At 500 AD we had claimed 3 of Sallies closest Cities and was playing a war of attrition. This was because izzy was very stubborn and refuse to go after some Wonders instead of building units. 
So I made settling a 2nd city by the gold a priority prioritizing it even over the copper to the SE, which I was relatively late settling. Initial build order I think was workboat-workboat-warrior-worker-warrior settler. I was going for spacerace so focussed very early on on cottaging, and not on building many military units which worked well since the AIs seemed to be quite a fair way away.
and currently 'researching' construction (60+ turns) - haven't even started on code of laws or currency yet. Relying on war gold to keep things going (having to capture a decent sized city every 6 turns or so to break even).
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