Even Better Than the Real Thing

So after being annoyingly defeated by the AI, I realize that I did it all wrong.  So I start up a shadow game.  Do the dotmap the same, but get the second city cranking units while Beijing does settlers.  I end up with a giant stack of swords that runs around Iroquois lands attacking cities (I should have pillaged), and a much larger civ.  At the point I left off, I was holding the line, waiting for Riders, and falling behind only on tech.  I may in fact get the hang of this eventually.