With the initial Warrior, I revealed a Banana Forest square and surmised that we are likely on a Rainforest map. On a Rainforest map, there is typically one Resource which appears repeatedly and which can appear in normally impossible situations, such as a Banana Resource being in a Forest.
The map did not look crazy enough to be the Fantasy Map Script, which could also generate a Banana Forest square, and which I believe was the map script which was used when Humbaba was first unleashed upon the community. I still have visions of dread of this "thing" appearing out of nowhere, smashing into my Warrior, and not quite dying (Humbaba retreated on the first attack and died on the second attack). Even a Free Win against the Barbarians can end in a Retreat.
Not liking what I saw, I sent the Settler in the opposite direction. A Grassland Deer Forest would have been good, but not a Grassland Banana Forest.
Therefore, I missed finding the G Riv Rice Forest square, or I would have gladly settled at that location (to the south-east of our starting location). After later exploration, it became evident that sending the Settler to the SE would have revealed that square, and I think that it would have made for a great place to settle, with the early extra Hammer, and a reasonable tech path of Mining -> Bronze Working -> Agriculture, with the "enforced" Chop to be able to get an early quick start, while also having two 4-Food-plus-Hammer squares to work early on (Rice and Banana), and with each of the 3 Food Resources being on a River, meaning that they could be Farmed and could give us early Commerce, while also having multiple Grassland Hills squares to work.
I had really wanted a production-heavy capital and had the plan of Oracling Alphabet, and that location would have fit the bill, perfectly.
Instead, I ended up to the south-west with Fish, Gold, and Cow. It wasn't a terrible location, but Animal Husbandry was not on my planned tech path, so, it was more like Magical Fish + Non-River Gold, which was still acceptable, but not much for a capital. I was already knee-deep in Jungle at that point and wasn't willing to keep exploring at 1-movement-per-turn for much longer.
I lost one GOTM long ago due to stealing the AI's starting Worker. Meanwhile, that AI's exploring Warrior had captured my capital. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I had been surprised, since it doesn't seem to often happen. Since I could no longer win that game, I had replayed it at the time by going back several turns and starting on a Warrior earlier, and had found that completing a Warrior in my capital was enough to scare the AI's exploring Unit away.
Fast forward to this game, and the lesson was clear: make sure to have one of:
1. a Unit defending your capital,
2. a Unit within close enough range to be able to get your capital, or
3. a Unit with enough Hammers invested in it to be completed in your capital, when needed.
Thus, initially, I explored close to the capital location, and after my Work Boat was built, I built a partial Warrior, which, based on the amount of visibility offered by my Cultural Borders, I could complete in time, when needed. Only then did I start on a Worker.
Anyway, there wasn't much for a Worker to do initially, anyway, as there was only the Gold to Mine, and then there was nothing else for the Worker to do.
Plus, I had followed LowtherCastle's idea of founding Buddhism. It's in-character for Isabella. And, it means being able to go for Writing via Priesthood.
The timing of Oracle versus Alphabet was totally off. I had done it nicely in a practice game in which I just had 3-Food squares and GH Mines, mimicking our starting location. But here, the Oracle was way too slow, and thus I had time to self-tech Alphabet before the Oracle could even be completed. I ended up Oracling Currency, which was actually quite nice in hindsight, but I had only squeezed out Settler 2, and thus I was seriously behind on settling locations.
With Alphabet being self-teched, I seriously contemplated Oracling Code of Laws. Had I had a few more Settlers out, I likely would have. But, I figured that if I was going to Oracle one of them and self-tech the other one, the tech which would provide more benefit in the short-term was Currency, as I did not yet have an army of Workers to start Chopping out Courthouses.
At City Size 5, I think that it was, I saw that Alphabet and Oracle really were badly timed, and thus it was at that time that I had decided to fit in Settler 2 before completing the Oracle.
It felt like a very bungled-up start, but having read about people running into financial difficulties, it may have been a blessing in disguise.
The goal with City 2 was to find an AI and settle right in the AI's face, to help with later Culture-Flipping of the AI's Core Cities. The first AI whom I found was Cyrus, and thus I settled my second City close to his Cultural Borders.
Settling 12 Cities is about as many as can be competently managed early in the game, financially, I believe. With a greater number of Cities, I think that in Non-Spiritual games, you would start to see extra turns of Anarchy for switching Civics once City 13 has been settled. Each additional City built really costs your entire empire in added Maintenance in every other City. At that high level of City count, the impact starts to really be felt, when the 13th City is expensive and the other 12 Cities are more expensive than they were just a moment ago. Thus, it's not just the Maintenance Cost in the latest City's City Screen that we need to consider.
Even with my slow start, at 10 AD, I see that I ended up with 13 Cities, and that was after having lost some of them...
At first, everything seemed normal. I settled City 2, and when talking with Cyrus, it showed "Barcelona (Liberate)," which makes sense. You can gift Cities and they appear in the Trading Window, and Cyrus didn't have any Cities listed, as he only had 1 City. Perfectly logical and perfectly normal.
Yet, over time, something niggled at my brain, and I came to realise that AIs' Cities were NOT appearing in the Trading Window's list of Cities. My later Cities were not appearing, and Barcelona did not appear for other AIs.
There had been only a brief mention of gifting Cities by kcd_swede, and his likely reason for a lack of testing became clearer: it wasn't going to be that easy to do, after all. But, at least I had learned that Liberating Cities was possible.
Flash forward and after settling some Cities in the north-east, I saw that Genghis would take them. Ahhh, the Cities must be close to his capital (which I had revealed in the 10 AD saved game but I don't think that I had revealed at that time).
A cunning (and perhaps foolish) plan formed, and I baited 2023 to come after my Warrior with a Dog Soldier, with the plan of Liberating Cities to Genghis and allowing 2023 to raze said Cities before Genghis could stuff City defenders into the Cities.
But, the plan backfired! 2023 came in with a Chariot, killed my only other Military Unit in the region, and was positioned to immediately threaten one of my Cities.
In a more normal game, the rule is that you cannot gift a City (whether Liberating or just giving away) that is under threat by an enemy Unit within a 2-square-range (the same range that is used for Barb-spawn-busting rules). Normally, it is Barb Units which prevent gifting of a City, but in this case, a Civ (or a Minor Civ) at war will also do the same threatening. Genghis would not take the City (nor would any of the other AIs, although they wouldn't have taken it anyway, as only 1 player is eligible for Liberation of any given City). I could not defend the City since my "baiting Warrior" was still dragging along the slow-moving Dog Soldier a few squares away. I had no choice but to lose the City, as it was still Size 1 and I could not even Cold-Whip a Unit.
Since I was likely to lose additional Cities to this Chariot, I fast-forwarded my plan and Liberated Cities sooner than planned. The Chariot took out another City, but this time, Genghis took the loss of a City. Ha!
The Dog Solder arrived and helped with taking out another Liberated City. However, the Dog Soldier was rather goofy, and it seemed to want to avoid attacking the City. It just wanted to follow my Unit and at first, it walked past the City! It must be a UNITAI_COUNTER script, which is normally assigned to Axemen/Dog Soldier Units. It's also one of the reasons why you are probably not going to see an AI Axe Rush you. Sure, if there is one Swordsman or one Crossbowmen, an army of Axemen will gladly follow it, but this UNITAI_COUNTER programming must be in place to prevent the AIs from doing what many Vanilla players would do to the AIs, which is Axemen Rush them. I say Vanilla because long ago, Forest Chops were at full strength at the start of the game without needing to learn Mathematics, and, of course, Bronze Working unlocks both of Axemen and Forest Chops. Rushing with Axemen is still a strong tactic in some games, but I find that a lot of XOTM games seem to be designed to thwart such a tactic.
The lesson here was that things were going to be very unpredictable: A Chariot could come out of nowhere and prevent a City from being able to be Liberated. A Dog Soldier might follow my Unit, but it might just dance around of a Liberated City before capturing the City for so long that the AI could get defending Units into the City.
Besides, by the time that I could get new Settlers in place, Genghis had already settled multiple Cities in the same area, and I think that my opportunity was mostly gone.
Thus, I decided to put my focus back on playing like a Cultural Victory, although with the hope of Domination at the back of my mind.
I actually built multiple Archers this game, which is relatively rare for me to do. Shaka will use an Impi to attack and capture a City defended by an Archer (a hard lesson from an earlier XOTM that I lost), but the hope is that 2023 either will not attack, or will at least not surprise me from out of nowhere, when I have Archers, instead of typical Warriors, defending my Cities.
I have been generous with gifting techs away. Thus, the AIs WERE able to get Iron Working for me, as they weren't wasting time on duplicate early-game techs.
This approach may backfire in some ways, though. I missed founding Judaism by a couple of turns. Also, Genghis' capital is building a Wonder. He wants Stone from me, so, it is not likely The Pyramids, as that Wonder would be quite expensive and thus it would be unlikely for him to have started building them. His City has an Aqueduct, meaning that giving away Math probably also means giving away The Hanging Gardens, as that Wonder is pretty cheap once you have an Aqueduct.
Cyrus is also building a Wonder in his capital, but I did not yet give him Math, and thus it is likely The Temple of Artemis. I will soon need to secure a source of Marble, to avoid losing too many Marble-Based Wonders to the AIs. The only two Marble spots which I have found, so far, look like pretty terrible locations for a City, but I will likely choose one of them, soon.
I don't have a lot of Workers, but I plan out their moves several turns in advance, to make the most of the ones which I do have. For example, 3 Workers had joined together to complete a Copper Mine on the very turn that a City grew into wanting to work that square. Many Cities have been settled by Magical Fish, thereby reducing the impact of having fewer Workers. But, the costs of my early Oracle gambit plus settling far away for future Cultural pressure purposes are obvious when comparing our modest Worker force to Powerfaker's significantly larger Worker count.
10 AD Stats (it's Epic Speed and thus we don't have a 1 AD saved game):
13 Cities, 40 Population, 11 Workers, and 11 Archers (plus a few other Units)
Religions founded: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Theology
Wonders: Oracle
Wonders in progress: The Pyramids and The Apostolic Palace
Cities lost to 2023: Genghis = 3 and Us = 1
I do have currency and I built the mids for representation, so with my libraries running scientists I should be able to get out of this hole soon enough, although there's still so much more land to settle to stifle the economy even further. Currently 15 cities and 56 pop, though a meagre 14 workers as compared to powerfaker. 
I did have 2023 give me an unexpected setback when out of nowhere a chariot showed up at a northern city that could only defend with a warrior. I thought ok, well, I'll capture the city back later, but 2023 razed it directly. I was wondering if that might have to do with that fancy elimination setting. Anyway, I resettled the same spot later and have the odd spear and chariot now guarding the northern borders. Techwise I have the most important stuff in Calendar, CoL, Currency (which I Oracled) and got Monarchy and IW in trade. CS is one third done, but at 0% won't get it all that soon either.
3rd city for the gold to the SW (would've been the 2nd city but I hadn't explored that area in time)
. Loads of land, but I'm feeling a bit hampered by how much jungle there is around our starting area.
