I've been mulling the following scenario around in my head for awhile now, and I'd love to hear what the esteemed minds at CivFanatics have to say about it! I've tried to explain my thoughts as thoroughly as possible, as I didn't want to just post some screenshots and ask you guys to do all the work ;-)

I've just started a new game (after promising myself that, no matter what, I'd play it to completion), Prince difficulty, random Civ & leader, and Shuffle map. I don't know which map type I ended up with yet, but I'm playing as Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire. I was happy to end up with a truly disgusting Bureaucracy capital:

http://www.grandmothersgame.com/images/Capital.JPG

Every single tile touches a river and, with the exception of the corn and a single plains hill, I can cottage them all! Further, my food balances out perfectly with every tile worked except that plains hill, which I intend to mine and switch over to when necessary. For the early game, I'll also mine the grass hills so I can alternate to production when I need to.
Here's the land around my capital, starting with the southeast:

http://www.grandmothersgame.com/images/Southeast.JPG
I know many of you will balk at settling one square away from the coast like I did, but City 2 is intended to be the military production city with which I'll conquer more of this continent. Going coastal would have cost me the Cows, a plains hill and a floodplain.

In case you're wondering why City 2 didn't grab a strategic resource: Horses is one border pop away from my capital (I'll have it in 7 turns) and the only nearby Copper is in the middle of a desert. Also, I'm researching Iron Working in hopes of finding Iron a bit closer, perhaps even in the resource-deficient BFC of my capital.

Here's the southwest:

http://www.grandmothersgame.com/images/Southwest.JPG
Both Copper and Ramesses II are southwest of me. I like Ramesses as an early ally. I don't see us coming into close contact with each other: there's a buffer zone of rather bleak terrain between us, and I intend to expand into the much more lucrative jungle to the north (hence the Iron Working). That said, I can block off the entire southeast by founding a city between the Wine and the Copper, and if I go further south I can nab the Wheat, too. I don't know how well Ramesses will like that, though, and I think I'm going to have my hands busy to the north.

Speaking of which, here's the northwest:

http://www.grandmothersgame.com/images/Northwest.JPG
There are those Horses I mentioned, as well as some of that lucrative jungle. Frederick is right on my doorstep, and I've pegged him as an early target. I'm sure he's got a tasty-delicious capital, and he's already started pushing towards me into those jungle riches I want so badly.

I'm considering founding a city near that lake, to grab all those resources, but the peaks vex me and I'm sure I'll screw up city placement. It's probably best to divide those resources between two cities, with at least one of them on the coast. I also think Ramesses will be moving in that direction, since there's a nice Gold tile just south of the pic that's accessible by a riverside coastal city. (You can see it in the southwest screenshot.)

Leaving the best till last, the northeast:

http://www.grandmothersgame.com/images/Northeast.JPG
That east coast is almost too good. It's so good I just don't know what to do with it. There's gold, gems, seafood and hills. I'm thinking of settling my Wall Street city up there, and running Merchant specialists all game to keep my science slider as high as possible (and my Bureaucracy capital humming). The gold is a little too far south to take advantage of the seafood, though, and there isn't much else around there to make up for the -2F hit each mine will take. I'm convinced the map generator figures out how to place resources to make an absolutely dominating city, then moves them all one square away just to mess with my head.

So. It's 1800BC, and I'm looking to leverage Justinian's Imperalistic trait by REXing a bit. I'm not an experienced REXer, and I suspect I'm a little late because I spent some early turns founding Hinduism, delaying my first Workers, then chopping Stonehenge until both Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working told me where my Settlers could find Copper and Horses. In fact, I may well have just described the precise opposite of REXing.

I have, however, built three Settlers in quick succession: my second Settler is sitting in my capital, and another is on the way. Should I grab Copper and block off the southwest from Ramesses, spam Workers and dive into the jungle to clash with Frederick, wait a bit until I know where Iron can be found, or some combination of the two?

On the diplomatic front, I think I'm alone on this continent with Frederick, Ramesses, and an unfriendly Wang Kon to the far north. I'm worried about Wang Kon expanding freely while Frederick and I fight over the jungle, so I don't want to put myself into a position where I can't go to war with Korea when I need to. We're already different religions, so I doubt it will be hard to keep him and Ramesses from buddying up once I spread Hinduism to the Egyptians. Then I'll try to grab an ally on the other continent ASAP and try to do that whole triangle diplomacy thing right for the first time ever.

Thank you for reading this far, for pondering my game with me, and for any discussion or advice you can offer that will help me become a better player!

REXing, don't get a granary that early. You need workers/settlers/warriors more.

On first thought, I would have grabbed the copper. But rushing frederick (horse archers will do ok) is also a priority. In that case gold cities are helpful.

You can't get the gems and gold together and seafood. Only one site can use the fish, and that grabs two gems. Unfortunately, the only other food source that support your 2 gold is the cow at your expansion. There's only the rice/gold/wine/cow city.

If you want to grab land for later, I'd grab the fish city, the bronze city, and the gold to the west. Unless you have a granary already, you should be chopping settlers while growing.

That clam fish rice 2 gems city in the NE is just too good. I'd be tempted to grab that first before Germany can get it. Plus you are researching Iron Working for the jungle, so it should be productive pretty quick. You're going to need a lot of workers though.

That gold up there isn't so great, there doesn't appear any easy way to work them (lack of food).

I wouldn't worry about grabbing the copper city, There will likely be Iron somewhere accessible.

2W of the southern gold gets unclaimed flood plains, gold, rice, cow, and wine. I'd settle that one soon too.

Z

You *must* get that gems city, it's just gorgeous. 1S of the clams is the spot for that. Pity the gold's not in a settlable position - but you still have the southern gold, as Mr. Z said.

My first thought would be to see if there's a way to rush Fred - he's got a lot of very tasty grassland indeed (including more gems, dyes, bananas and ivory to the west).

Looks like an early happy cap of 7 for all cities, anyway, with gems, gold and religion. If you can get an early Metal Casting (Oracle?) and forges, you're in a very strong position indeed.