I was playing a game with Cathy and came to an observation:

If you start Ag-AH-BW-IW and with a 2nd scout you can have a ton of land explored and the early 3 resources appeared by around 1800 BC (roughly).

With creative there is no need to tech mysticism, so after IW you can go wheel-pottery.

On emperor+ you may need to go wheel earlier to get horses/copper hooked up, but on monarch I'm finding you can generally wait as you will only have probably 1 city beyond your capital at this point and are not getting snowed under by barbs.

What is the advantage here? Well, for one thing you won't have the experience where you wished you had known where iron was so that you had moved your 3rd city 1W to get the iron in your BFC! I have that a lot actually.

In general, you will have solid early city placement, knowledge of the lay of the land, as well as knowledge of what kinds of cities you will have in your early empire. You will also know whether you have close rivals are not.

That means that very early in the game you will be able to plan out a lot of how your game will develop. Lots of high production cities and a couple close neighbours? Seems like war to me. Lots of grassland commerce cities and no close neighbours? Cottage spam. Lots of high production cities, stone and/or marble, and no close neighbours? Target some wonders. Lots of high-food cities with limited grasslands? Run a lot of specialists. Lots of coastal cities and stone/copper? Consider a GLH/Colossus combo.

You get the idea. The earlier you know your surroundings, and whether you have horses/copper/iron, and where your neighbours are, the sooner you can decide your strategy.

And my sense is that Cathy can do this better (i.e., earlier) than anyone else by being able to tech ag (always need some farms)-ah-bw-iw without diverting for myst while starting with a scout and the ability to build a 2nd scout right away.

Kublai deserves honourable mention since he has hunt + creative as well. He gets 2nd place for having wheel instead of mining. On higher levels, they may well be equal since as I said you may need wheel earlier rather than later to survive barb attacks.

EDIT: p.s., i'm talking about normal speed here. on the slower speeds you can have a ton of land explored with just a warrior!!!

I think all three Russians have this ability and are very stronge in the beginning (because you can get the three warring resources earliest) and at the end with teh space race (UB is huge there). They also hold their own with the Cossacks in the middle of the game although I think Peter is the strongest middle game. Cathy has the advantages you mentioned, Peter the early worker and health, Stalin the incresed power of early axes/swords plus industrious. Mysticism is a cheap tech so I do not think the extra time is a big deal for Stalin/Peter.

I think you can do the same thing with Zara Yaqob. Doesnt he have the same starting techs and is creative. Although you may want mysticism for the UB, not thats its very helpful since he's already creative

Anyway i'll always prefer the wheel/agriculture as my starting techs. They are the most expensive and your worker always has something to do.

Yes it works well if you find iron close. I had one of my earliest dominations with this start.
Having swords early is massive.

I'm thinking the key is excellent early city placement and knowledge.

After land, knowledge is power.

well I'd normally trade Alphabet or Mathematics for IW.... at least you won't increase you're WFYABTA cap lol.

My only problem is that IW takes a really long time to research at 8 breakers per turn :S...

yes, but i find that in the early going you can afford it if you time it right.

yes, but i find that in the early going you can afford it if you time it right.

What does timing it right actually entail? I'm curious.