So, here we go.
The starting screen:
we have 3 settlers + 3 archers + 1 missionary and 4 axemen.
There will be the following cities on the map soon:
Lyon (2 archers, flat)
Marseille (1 archer, flat)
Milan (1 archer, flat)
Firenze (1 archer, hill)
Toulouse (1-3 archers, flat)
Bordeaux (2-3 archers, flat)
Bordeaux and Toulouse are barbarian -> they wont suffer barbs attacking them and won't be burned down, so we can wait with conquering them (especially Bordeaux since it has poor production, also some of the archers there tend to wander off)
My first thought was moving Paris 1 southwest, so that it is between the horses and the cow (orange circle), giving more options for settling the other city in Orleans. But that would leave Paris without the Iron for a few turns reducing it's production and the cow and horses can only be pastured after ~7-8 turns.
Also: Paris would have less hills in its BFC, meaning it won't be able to produce mounted sergeants in 5-6 turns later. But for the lategame I think I'd prefer this spot.
I'd then settle the Orleans-city probably north of the other cow,, leaving less of a gaping hole in central France
Anyway: Paris will probably be founded on the spot. Then the Orleans-city will be the one 1N of the wheat, with the horse in its inner circle (since we won't have an increase soon).
OR would you go 1 more tile to the west and use the missionary for this city? (red circle) It would mean less overlap, better tiles and more space for another city in the Orleans-province later. And probably that the city we will found in northern Aquitaine won't be the one on the existing town (between salt & wine) and instead closer to the coast.
That leaves the last settler. I used him to found a city in the Champagne (Picardie also is an option but I think it is better to settle there later, just before the independent city spawns (or take that one).
I really liked the spot on the wine next to the iron. (red circle) It gives you an instant happy-res you won't be able to get otherwise for a while and you have an iron-hill for production. But once Dijon is founded that city will suck.
my first instinct was the green circle, leaving a maximum of space for Paris and the new city plus Calais without getting into trouble with Dijon.
But the wine won't be usable before the time for UHV 1 runs out and also the iron is not in the inner circle -> won't be usable for quite a while.
Or we could use the missionary here in order to get the iron quicker...but then the barbs often come from this direction so I think it will get pillaged quite often...
What do you recommend?
once the settling is discussed I'll continue with the first conquests