I tried the advanced start option a few times today and was quite impressed by the results.
I finally cut the points total down to 1000 each (large world size) which was enough to set myself up with a starting Tech or two, a warrior and a worker, and it went great. The only thing I noticed is that most of the AI Civs I met had culturally-expanded borders at (or near to) the start of the game.

I was just wondering how many other people utilise this function on a regular basis, and how many points you tend to award each Civ? I had been frustrated at my failure to achieve certain goals by particular dates (to try and match the real world civs) and this method allows this to happen - so I can try and build the pyramids by 2500BC (yeah, who am I trying to kid.)

I usually go with the default 720, perhaps raised to 800. I usually give myself Myst to get a religion sooner or if I have myst, then hinduism right away to have a religion. and also as many settlers as I can afford and workers if I have mining or roads or something for them to do. Obviously, if I find stone anywhere near, I make a beeline to get henge and get the religion that way with Oracle.

Sound cool.
Do you consider this a cheat or acceptable game-play?
I reasoned that as the AI get the same number of points it was okay, but if you can give yourself an advantage like a religion or an appropriate resource-tech, then it could be considered cheesy.
I wonder whether the AI does the same - I mean will it give itself Masonry if it starts near marble/stone?

Never tried my self, but i read on multiple occasions, that the AI is quite bad at it....

Spending points on boarder pops might be one of those stupid things... Will pop soon enought anyway...

if they offer it legimately, it's not a cheat. I'm not sure whether/if the AIs get the same amount to work with. If they do, the seem to go to techs and possibly workers, but of course we can't see the tech start until we get alphabet. I don't recall another civ having more than one city when I meet them.

I played one game where I started with 3 cities and nothing else except a single warrior, which was interesting. I also managed to take out Thebes with that warrior a few turns later. It was a border-popped size 4 city with no defenders or workers and had 5 farmed flood-plains in it's BFC. Dunno why Hatty didn't choose to build a warrior, and she obviously wasn't running slavery or she would've whipped one as I was approaching.

I'm wondering whether I should increase my diff level when I play with advanced start to even things out a bit.

i read on multiple occasions, that the AI is quite bad at it....

The AI was so bad at it that it pretty much was a cheat, until Bhruic's patch came out. Especially if you had a high point start. The AI sucked at buying tech, so all you had to do was plunk down cities, hook up copper, and start with two axemen per city... Usually you ran into your neighbours before the minimum 10 turn peace was up. I routinely managed to take down two civs with my "axe rush" pre-patch (and I suck at early warmongering).

Post-patch, the AI buys Archery and, yes, resource techs. I don't know why they place so much value on popping the cultural borders. I know that if your leader is cultural, they start already popped for free (a nice bonus).

if i understand correctly, the AI (like the player) doesn't start with any free units, including the free archer/worker/settler they normally receive on higher difficulties. monarch is practically a cakewalk when i play with advanced start, not so with normal conditions.

i usually just build cities (3-4ish), a few units for scouting, and possibly a worker. saves alot of trouble during the early REXing phase, the rest can be made up with extra production.

I quite like the advanced start, mostly because I'm very impatient. Also, i like how it allows you to set up some interesting situations that would never happen in a normal game. However, I gotta say that it does make the game MUCH easier, because the AI is really bad at exploiting the advanced start. I usually do advanced starts in midieval or later eras, though.

I do 900-point advanced starts a lot. I think it adds another dimension to the game early on.

AIs definitely build more than one city a lot, and popping cultural borders isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you don't do it in the capitol.

One of my favourite starts is to get bronze working, and if you're lucky enough to have bronze around, place a city there along with a mine and then get two axemen. After that you can usually take out an AI of your choice. If those initial two axemen fail however you can be in big trouble.