Brute force diplomacy

Sometimes things don't go quite as planned.  Going into this King level game, my initial thought was to build up a solid economy, and then shower gold on all of the City States to earn a diplomatic victory.  To this end, I decided to avoid the majority of the cultural buildings and all faith-related buildings, and simply focus on production, research, and wealth.

Fairly early on it was apparent that real estate would come at a premium on the map for this challenge; with the Poles to the east and the Indonesians and Assyrians to the west, I had to act quickly to carve out three nice cities.

My base of operations - 50AD

As my economy ramped up I took an early lead in all of the important growth indicators (Technology, GDP, Crops), but something changed around the year 1200AD, and the Indonesians started pulling ahead.

Worried that I'd be in jeopardy later on if I didn't act quickly, I amassed a fleet of two Frigates, a Galleas, and a Privateer and sprung a sneak attack on Indonesia just as they were ferrying ground units west.  I easily dispatched the vulnerable embarked units, and then took control of the enemy navy using the Ottomans' crazily overpowered Barbary Cosairs civilization perk.  My beefed up navy then proceeded to lay waste to Jakarta, which fell quickly.

Capital #1 - Jakarta - 1310AD

At this point I realized that I had a significant advantage over the remaining Civilizations if I acted rapidly, and a domination victory wouldn't be difficult if I could find enough Iron on the map to build more Frigates.  To this end I invested heavily in the City States that had Iron to offer, and built up a fleet of eight Frigates and two Privateers.

Navy in hand, it was time to do my dirty work.  First on my list was the Assyrians:

Capital #2 - Assur - 1460AD

Next came the Polish:

Capital #3 - Warsaw - 1550AD

The poor English:

Capital #4 - London (plus York) - 1585AD

And last but not least, the Celts:

Capital #5 - Edinburgh - 1610AD

This whirlwind blitz was completed before I'd ever reached the Industrial era, which is when naval warfare really gets fun, however I was not about to risk my first King-level difficulty victory just to play around with Battleships and Ironclads in a few hundreds years.

For posterity, here is the final score that I wracked up at the end of my reign of terror.

Final score: 3419 

Apparently it pays to turn the seas red with blood!