Sorry, I've been busy tweaking the normal map in world builder, finally managed to get a strong Egypt going. However, there's something strange about the Iberians. The AI for them appears to be mentally challenged. I tweaked their area as I stated way back, and the AI still doesn't seem capable of getting more than a few cities for them. Tartissians haven't crossed the med in 3 games now, and instead, opt to colonize most of the Iberian penninsula.
I just had a very strange game over the weekend too. I seriously tweaked the region where Egypt plays...too much to list here. I'm willing to email the save file for 5500 BC. That file will also have several other changes, such as the ones I've talked about for Mycenae, Iberians, and Tartessians.
Back to the strange game. 1) Agememnon actually colonized very well. However, everyone else did not, well, except for me anyway. I think the AI puts too much weight on distance to AI cities in their colonization decisions. 2) Iberians colonized a little past the mountains to the NE, which apparently through the Gauls and Germanic tribes out of wack. Tartessians never crossed the Med. The barbarians penned in Carthage (I think partly because I, as the Egyptians didn't go barbarian hunting too much). Mycenaean expansion North and East and into the Med (close to actual history I think) seems to have thrown Illyria, the Gaetians, the Scythians, the Lydians, and the Romans off better settlement choices. The Germanic tribes...I don't know what they were thinking with some of their city placements.
3) I gave the Hittites a spot of wheet to help combat Lydian expansion, which actually ended up balancing the Lydians and the Hittites, but also seems to have led to a strange settlement path, which disrupted the developement of Phoenicia, the Kolchis and the Babylonians.
In summary, I have a 600 point lead in 650BC, am well into the Classical age, and my nearest competition is Hammurabi and Agememnon and Dido, but they are all severly backward in tech, compaired to me.
I do not believe that my tweaks to the Egyptian terrain should have made that much of a difference. I did give Egypt a healthy industrial boost (let's face it, they are a little crippled in that department otherwise).
For whatever reason, the AI's settlement strategy lead to a cascade effect that rippled all around the world, and now, there are only 3 powers with any real research rate to speak of.
Very bizaar.