@ Rusten :
It's very generous of you to lay down a strong opening like that
I'm tempted to follow it (think I prefer that to settling 1NE, although there are
other options - I haven't dismissed 2S2E entirely and 1W also needs consideration, grabbing floodplains).
A couple of things bother me, that may induce me into settling somewhere else :
a) Elizabeth has a hard time popping borders. Splitting the resources we can see in the opening screen between 3 cities isn't very appealing to me. That restrains the settling options by a lot.
b) I'm reluctant to forego the commerce specials entirely. They make stuff like an Oracle gambit or an Alphabet beeline a lot more credible.
From there, there are 2 "ifs" and one "then" :
- If you're going to settle 2S1W ;
- If you're going to whip the first settler at size 4 ;
- Then I'd seriously consider overflowing hammers into another settler rather than into a worker.
It's there ! It's almost there ! Who's going to found Judaism ?
Have a nice game !