Round 1: to 2720 BC
I started researching Mining right away. I sent the Scout due east of Athens, then started curling him around in a clockwise direction. He found a tribal village along the way, and some flood plains, too:
I was relieved to see the floodplains, but there's still a heckuvalot of desert tiles over there. I'm hoping one of you folks will take it upon yourself to dotmap this mess for me, 'cuz I'm kind of stumped.
That goody hut just south of Athens popped along with the capital's borders. I got a free tech! Guess which one?
Hmmm, yeah, thanks... y'know, I was only three turns away from getting that on my own... Maybe I shoulda researched Agriculture first. Oh well. Three turns is three turns. I started researching Bronze Working a little bit earlier thanks to my "free technology".
My Scout reached the west coast just south of Athens, then turned around (dodging a barb bear along the way) and started another swing back through the south. Along the way, he met the first of the neighbours:
Have we seen Mao in one of the ALCs yet? Besides the one where I played as him? I'm asking because as you'll see, I'm not exactly up against the usual suspects.
The Workboat finished in Athens and I started building my 2nd Scout. With the clams being worked, the city increased to 2 pop pretty quickly:
A few turns later, I finished researching Bronze Working and changed civics to Slavery. And I have some extremely good news:
Copper in the fat cross! Oh happy day, caloo calay! Especially since Alexander's UU requires copper. This is almost as good as having Iron in Rome's fat cross.
It doesn't
quite make up for the rest of the nearby terrain being so sucky, but it helps.
My southern Scout encountered another foreign leader:
You see what I mean? We haven't encountered Saladin too often in the ALCs either. But there he is, stroking his beard thoughtfully beneath that funky oil-funnel hat.
As suggested, I decided to have the second Scout tour the frozen wastes of the North. I don't hold out much hope for goody huts, though:
I'm really not sure how that slow-moving Chinese Warrior found his way up north so fast. I'm beginning to think that China is somewhere to my east (the far east?) rather than south or southwest. But my scout did find silver, marble, and crabs up there, all within a potential fat cross. So sooner or later, I'll be founding the Greek city of "Iceberg". (Heh. Iceberg...get it? See, some city names end with "-berg" and... oh, it's not funny if you have to explain it!)
And the third squatter on my continent reared her ugly head:
Last time we saw Vicky was in the Hatshepsut game, and the Qin game before that, making this her 3rd appearance in the ALCs as an opposing Civ, IIRC. (Speaking of England, have we seen Elizabeth in an ALC yet? I've got this thing for redheads...) Anyway, since I met up with Vicky's Warrior a good ways southeast of Arabia, I'm betting that's where she's located.
But like I said, not exactly the usual suspects. I seem to rarely encounter these three in my own games, let alone the ALCs. It's usually Huayna, Monty, Cyrus, Hatty, and so on. Although I have now seen Vicky more often in the ALCs than I have on my own. Strange. But not relevant.
The real point is that none of these three are exactly intimidating. If I'm planning on warmongering--which I am--then I could time my wars based upon denying these three access to their UUs. If Mao is indeed just to my east, he would likely be my first target, to ensure he never gets to the medieval era and those nasty Cho-Ko-Nus. Then Saladin, though his Camel Archers don't exactly instill the fear of Allah into anybody. And I gotta get to Vicky way before she gets near Rifling and those troublesome Redcoats.
As my Scout was exploring, he spotted a goody hut in the distance, and of course I went and popped it.
Curiouser and curiouser. I popped a hut for a Warrior, on Prince no less. That doesn't happen to me very often since I left Warlord level. The Warrior, alas, was very short lived. I was going to see if I could use him to steal a Worker from Saladin, perphaps, since Scouts can't do that. He ventured into the forest to the east of the hill where he came into the world and was immediately attacked by a lion. He then dragged his bloodied hide to the forested hill one tile south of his former hutty home, so that he could heal in a safe place. Ha! A panther made short work of him a couple of turns later. Good thing I got some gold and a half-decent map from a couple of other huts or I'd be totally cursing my luck with the stupid things in this game.
Anyway, back home, when the Worker was one turn from completing, I whipped him and put the overflow into a barracks. Given how cheap those are for Aggressive Alex, it finished in one turn (which is also all Athens needed to get back to 2 pop). So I sent the Worker to immediately start work on the copper while I researched the Wheel. Once the copper is on-line, I can start churning out Axes and Phalanxes along with Settlers.
Yes, I decided to build one more Scout. My northern Scout has had a rough time, encountering wolves one the snowpack twice. It's earned him a Woodsman I promotion, but he's had to stop to heal for about 4 turns twice now. My southern Scout has had a similar experience. As a result, much of the area directly east of Athens has still not been explored. That will be this fellow's job. If I still have some turns before the copper is available, I'll start work on a Settler.
I also chose Mysticism as my next research target. My thinking is to either build Obelisks or Stonehenge for culture and border pops, as well as teching towards the Oracle. Now, if anyone thinks I should research something else, by all means, chime in. As you can see, I stopped the game at this point with no research done so that I can switch if someone has a better suggestion.
Here's a look at the map:
Like I said, I'm pretty much cut off from the south for a while by that large swath of desert. I was thinking of putting a city 5 tiles due east of Athens to claim the cow tile and 5 of the flood plains, though I'd get 2 useless peaks and 2 equally useless desert tiles in there as well. The only other two potential city sites I've revealed are ones that I normally wouldn't even think about using until much later in the game: Iceberg, 2S of the crabs, and something in the vicinty of the fish and cows to Athens' west. The wheat and stone to Athens' south are pretty awkwardly located with all those desert tiles around them.
This is gonna be a tough map. The good news is that there is a lot of choice grassland terrain further south. The bad news is it's going to be awhile before I can make use of it. Of course, Saladin and Vicky will probably build some cities there for me. Very nice of them, don't you think? This also will very likely be one of those games where I end up moving the capital.
In one game I had 2 maps of mostly ocean tiles, imagine how happy I was... 
), but heres my attempt:
