I don't know if it's just me taking it wrong but I don't understand why people take this map as garbage. Well it's not, it turns out to be fairly nice in fact, a 250 SV, ain't too shabby.
The thing is all 4 cities do not overlap or barely in case of 3 and 4, I have a substantial number of gold + gems + wine and quite a bit of horses, sheeps, cows in all cities, which mean I can produce a substantial amount of gold by just working these tiles (with ducal) + trade alone. Every single trade route was used for internal food trade and I did not have any problem money wise. And 4 mountains lol. These 4 cities fit so nicely together I think they are really really good placements. A lack of good tiles + food means freedom is an obvious choice, so I took it, and end up having every single specialists worked as you can see (merchants were worked pretty late of course, don't even say why you work merchants it's not good because I really get the vibe that everyone looks down on new members here guys it's not really nice). I decided that the Vic Lake was garbage and didn't even bother, but I really disagreed on people not taking the spot near grand mesa seriously, because it turned out to be my best production city after mid game. Granted people didn't see the fishes in the initial map but I didn't see it either but I still believed it was a good spot regardless because the two coastal cities could trade with each other.
I also had kind of good luck this game, an early maritime CS ally so I was able to grow a bit at the start. Poland Trad+Liberty together is really awesome lol no wonder why it's god tier. Also every civ was really friendly at the start b/c they all hate Genghis Khan for taking CSs so it's just a matter of denouncing him and all the DoFs flow in. In all honesty it wasn't necessary but it certainly helped. I wasn't particular sure about the 4th city placement because it was on a different coast, but it was such a nice defensible spot with mountain, coast, 2 luxuries + sheeps + 2 fishes and later 1 oil, I decided it was worth not having cargo ship but caravan to carry food there instead. Granted at first it was growing pretty slowly, but the 2 gems kinda paid for it, and it attracted caravans, so overally I couldn't be any happier. The only regret I had was letting Maria got to the spot above Lodz first, but it was pretty close to their cap there wasn't anything I would've been able to do about it, so in the end it all worked out nicely.
I'm not trying to brag or anything, but it kinda bothers me people don't take this map as seriously as they should, so I post these here to show you is all.