Mine was Rome w/ a Military & Economic Victory option. The Culture bonuses threw off the opponents in the beginning until I started to obtain coins instead of culture tokens. The result was an economic victory.

I played against Bismark and was supprised to beat the military dictator. My opponent chose the same route since he had the option to gain a coin in the beginning, but was forced to build units, and could not obtain coins early on until later in the game. A switch to Tech would have helped upgrade his standing forces.

As Rome, I had only fought against 2 villages(one was a Great Person, science, lucky me), but obtain more resources after winning all but first battles against Bismark. I actually had better units then Bismark causing him to lose most of his units.

I only moved down the culture track 3 spaces obtaining one additional Great person person (Humanitarian) gaining another coin. The cards were +3 to production to a city(allowing me to build the colossus), and force the opponent into anarchy.

You can probably guess my Techs now, Pottery, Democracy, Chivalry ->Feudalism(for the coin & upgraded units), Metal Working (to obtain a cheaper Colossus & use a resource during a battle), horseback riding (gather resources faster), civil service (+1 coin), and metal casting(+1 coin). Not in this order of course. With so many resources won from my opponent and extra trade, I was able to add ~3 coins to my dial around the 7th or 8th turn.

I kept track of all the turns and it only took 10 turns (ending in city management on turn 10) to end the game. Bismark's biggest issue was trying to obtain Level II techs, but Anarchy and loss in battles hindered an option to build scouts to place on nearby deserts. There could have been many factors like the uncovering of a coast blocking movement from one tile to another (forcing navigation on Bismark). Talk about hindering one entire tile behind water which he should have built with instead of the closer tile to the opponent. I(Rome) never researched navigation.

Do you have details about your match?