Without A Kiss I: Sitting Bull

Settle in place. Initial build order: Warrior -> Worker while researching AH for the piggies. After that Mining -> BW; Road -> Pottery. Depending on what we see in the fog in the coming turns, AH may be abandoned more quickly in hopes of spotting copper so we can start getting the Dog Soldiers out. Remember this is Pangea, so we have military access to pretty much anyone we desire

Oh, I'll probably move the Warrior 1E.

A few things about the start that caught my eye:
Low food capital, lots of empty plains/grass, possible strategic resource.
Gold is obviously excellent, we'll power on through the early techs.
Far north, which means we'll need to settle our first cities south to block, also, we might find silver, but likely no gems, and very few calendar resources.

Settled in place and started a worker after seeing that wheat tile, started tech on mining. After the worker I built 3 warriors (first scouted the north and is almost back home, second went south and west) and have a place-holding dog soldier and writing as the placeholder tech until I start again.
The hut in the north popped for 60 and I swung the warrior back around to the south. He popped another hut down there for experience and took Woodsman II. I hope to keep him alive to use as a Woods III Medic III super healer with a GG.
The early religions fell on turns 11 (Buddhism) and 24 (Hindu), and I met both founders.
Huayna Capac, the Buddhist on turn 20, he's in the SE (really the only option ) but I don't see his borders as of yet.
and Ragnar, the Hindu on turn 26, his capital is directly east of ours. There is a land connection to in from both N and S but the north is blocked off by a mountain.

The good news here, is that we'll be able to stir up some trouble between the two of them easily (since we'll have a tech lead, it won't be hard to bribe one or the other.)

Once our worker popped out, he farmed the wheat tile, then mined gold, and finally pastured the sheep. I was thinking of pursuing early IW and a swords rush due to the gold tile and the proximity of Ragnar, but his capital from what we can see, looks pretty mediocre (I still haven't decided).

Only other thing of interest here is meeting Augustus on turn 41, he's far to the east but he appears to block a peninsula off from us, until OB.

Some summary screens:
Known world west:

Known world east:

Capital:


You can see Ragnar's and Augustus' land if you look and the colored resource bubbles.

Initial tech path was what I'd planned: AH, Mining -> BW. Currently researching IW in hopes of revealing some iron nearby (hopefully in the capital's fat cross )
Worker actions: Pastured the sheep (sorry about the mistake in the first post; they're not pigs) first then mined the gold. Finished the mine 1 turn before BW finished, so I was able to start chopping immediately after research completed (good timing).

Noteworthy events:
3950 BC: Goodie Hut popped Sailing
3700 BC: Buddhism founded (later found out this was HC)
3650 BC: Found Ragnar to our East -- land access atm blocked by a peak... Not sure if this is to our advantage yet or not.
3575 BC: Reached Pop 2; switched from Warrior to Worker.
3300 BC: Found HC Empire to the south and discovered he founded Buddhism, also encountered Suleiman's Warrior.
3225 BC: Hinduism founded (later found out this was Ragnar)
2975 BC: 3rd Warrior finished (was interrupted by the Worker). Begin building a settler.
2950 BC: Pastured the sheep; began mining gold.
2750 BC: Found Suleiman to the SE, converted to Slavery.
2725 BC: Began researching IW, found Monty's warrior near Suleiman's empire.

Here's the world thus far:
Resources:
Culture:

As you can see, I'm in great danger of being choked into my crappy little spot at the NW of the world. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot desirable land that I see, so this might wind up being some aggressive, military expansion (assuming we can get some iron *crosses fingers*). However, I'm not totally comfortable banking on that resource, so the Settler that I'm working in Cahokia is probably going to be settled shortly after its completion, though I haven't given a whole lot of thought as to where that's going to be, as yet (the best spot, in my view, will capture the horses and jumbos so we can get some warmongering going. The marble is a nice added bonus.)

Speaking of our fine Capital, here's its city screen:

Six hills and a few grassland/river tiles. There's probably a hidden resource somewhere in there, as well. I'm guessing that Cahokia's going to be primarily a production city, but there's a good possibility that it'll be production/commerce hybrid (if it's feasible, I'd like to get Colossus so those ocean tiles are worth something, but I doubt I'll have time to waste on that.)

My plan going ahead:
- Expand! First objective is simply to ensure that I don't get trapped.
- Take out one of these neighboring civs; likely either Ragnar (Edit: This was before I caught my mistake that Ragnar founded Hinduism. It may change the strategy moving forward) or Sulley, with preference given to Sulley. While I'm sort of concerned about the militaristic/aggressive attitudes of my neighbors, I'm more concerned that Sulley's going to block me in with tendency to expand really quickly.
- Work those angry neighbors to my advantage. There's a strong chance I'm going to Buddhism spread to my lands. Hopefully, I can get HC distracted with Monty so I can take the Buddhist holy city and buddy up to remaining, unconverted neighbors.

Mitigating factors:
- Access to Iron
- Spread of religions
- City-Building sites

holy crap look at the neighbors D:

-Settled Poverty Point 1N of Rice.
-IW revealed Iron in Poverty Point's BFC and just outside capital's fat cross.
-This, of course, meant it was time to go to war. I targeted Sulley since I didn't really want to deal with being blocked in, nor his expanding empire. Captured Istanbul and his 2nd city to the north, razed a city to the south, and then signed a peace treaty. I assume he's only got one city left atm, but I only barely managed victory and my army is pretty decimated. I'll likely finish him off before I go in search of my next victim.
-Converted to Buddhism thanks to HC's missionary.

After I finish mopping up Sulley, I'll turn my attention to HC, I think. Though he's currently an ally, the following reasons play into my decision:
-He's basically boxed in by me. I'd rather fight him that way, than have him try to bust out.
-He's the only other Buddhist on the map so far (but I think I've spotted his missionaries spreading it out more), so I'm not likely to take hard diplo hits.
-He's got a Holy City that I'd love to shrine

I'm currently researching Math and will go straight to construction so I can bring some cats into the HC war. I have enough health resources, and happiness isn't a problem yet (I also have an extra iron that could be traded away, if necessary, and a couple of Wine and banana tiles that will be possible to work soon.)