re: maoi statues, i usually always build them in a 1-tile island city; however, in an archipelago map building them in the capital to have a high-powered production center early could be game-winning.
I did this for a while, but I realized that it isn't a good plan. What you wind up with is a very mediocre production city that can really only build ships. Now, I look to see if I can get eight or more coast squares in a good hybrid city. It makes more sense to me to turn a good coastal city into a great one th an to turn a useless city into an almost useless city.
My vote is for moving onto the stone. It won't speed up the first workboat very much (as you'd want to work a 3
/
square, which can only be a grassland forest or the flood plains. However, you will get a net 2
while still producing a workboat as fast as possible otherwise. And once it becomes time to produce the worker, you'll crank him out faster too.
Quarries are not a great improvement. They're only as good as a mine, without the ability to pop a resource. By settling on the stone, you still get the 1
from the resource, so it's a strict comparison between the improvements.
With 10
coast and 1 ocean, this is an excellent city for the Maoi statues, especially since you will want to be working at least four of those tiles most of the time, and with financial, all ten of those coast tiles are worth a minimum of 2
/1
/3
-- add Colossus, and remember that four of those have an additional three food, and you're looking at some good tiles to work. You're still on a river, and out of the nine land tiles left, all but two are riverside as well, so levees are still a good boost.
With that stone, and a near guarantee that there is little early threat, I think that you'll wind up building quite a few wonders, including the pyramids. Pyramids lends itself to a SE, and while Financial isn't normally considered a great SE trait, the amount of water on this map means that the trait will let your coastal tiles give you the commerce you need to stay in the black.
Also, since you will likely have a number of wonders available, you're already going to have a good GP pool going on in the capital, and adding specialists will put that up to a ridiculous level. Later on, you might want to move the capital, and leave this as a GP farm with a solid base even without specialists.
At pop 6 (post-Maoi, while working on the 'mids), you're looking at 14 raw hammers (4 clams, elephant, mined hill, 3
city square), doubled for stone. Pyramids are 500 * 1.5 for Epic. That takes 27 turns, which is respectable. I wouldn't want to chop the forests, but it is an option. Plus, you'll still be earning 23 food per turn, which will let you grow to size 10, and whip off 5 pop to hurry the 'mids at the end.
And don't forget the 17
you get while doing this.
If you settle in place, the Maoi statues won't be worth it any more. At size 6, you'd be working 2 clams, which leaves food for stone (5
), plains hill (4
), and 2 elephants (6
). Add the city square, and you get a grand total of 16
, or 24 turns. And you only earn 15
instead of 17.
I'm just not seeing the benefit of staying in place. Early game > late game, and you can't get any earlier than settling on a stone/plains/hill. The only real benefit I see is that you reserve the extra clams for other cities, but you might not want cities there once you've scouted around.
For tech, I'd go with either Sailing-Mining-Masonry-Archery-BW or Mining-Masonry-Sailing-Archery-BW. It might also be worth it to run to Monotheism instead of BW. You'll be pulling in a LOT of commerce very early, regardless of where you settle, so you should have a good shot. And if you are relatively isolated, it would be nice to have a religion in your region.
The only thing you know about your start is that you aren't surrounded by opponents, so military techs are low priorities. Barbs probably won't even be a problem, since even if you're on a larger landmass, there will almost certainly be chokepoints. For war, I'd wait until the 'zerks show up, or, at the very least, until construction. Heck, a jumbo/cat offensive on its own is still pretty strong, so the most important part of BW is that it leads to MC. Come medieval era, you'll be able to stomp anything in your path.
I'm going to go ahead and play, so suggestion time is over. Best of luck, and thanks for playing for us!
/ 
resources.
