I played for a few hundred hours and I think I figured out a perfect playbook.

I only play production-strong civs (Age of Steam, Germany, America) but win 12/13.

I never won anything other than Science or Domination on Deity.

Here’s what I do:

Ancient era Goal is to survive, explore and get 3-4 cities quickly. I optimize for getting quickly to chopping and then chop everything I can as fast as I can to generate 2 settlers + 3 slingers with upgrade to archers. I barely ever invest in exploration. Setting 3-4 cities with walls for cities closest to AI is the key.

The only thing I care about is Industrial complex adjacencies when setting up the cities. Industrial complex + commercial district + science district close to each other make all the difference.

The is the only era where I lose. If we’re past ancient era, we’re good!

After ancient era the goal is to discover Industrial complex as fast as you can while discovering an upgrade to archers. Build 2-3 more archers or buy them, before Machinery is discovered.

That’s it.

After that you just build districts, improve tiles and don’t invest in military anything. Wherever you can friend all of AI players. Don’t spend money on anything other than buying builders to chop / improve tiles. Invest in spies to steal tech boosts (AI is 7-10 techs ahead of me usually until last 70-80 turns)

Once you get to rocketry, the game is on. You discover advanced flight and now you can destroy AI.

At this time you should have plenty of cash to buy 4-5 bombers.

Bombers should be sitting in cities vs airports, that stifles AI to fight back. For the next 30-40 turns you bomb all nearby cities to 0 health and take them with any heavy cavalry units.

While acquiring new cities you keep building bombers (friend AI that’s not close by before starting wars).

That’s it. You win on score, domination or science.

I’ve done this 20 ish times and got bored. Waiting for Civ 7.

What’s your playbook?

Happy to answer any questions.