Nice call on the 3 commerce for settling on that wine, I hadn't considered it.
I see nobody echoed my call for mysticism as an early tech, so I'd like to justify it. First, with a charismatic leader, it gets you a
, and luxuries can be hard to come by, especially early. Second, which may not be so obvious, is that monuments are cheaper than than libraries, and expanding the culture border is key not only to exploiting resources but to reaching islands. That is, if your culture border reaches a square adjacent to an offshore square, you can cross the ocean with your galley and make a landing on the new island. I hope I'm not wasting people's time with something completely obvious, but monuments are much easier to whip than libraries.
I think we dodged a bullet not taking save 5. It's quite isolated. I've played it through 1000 AD and there was a longish stretch of hitting enter. I have a few notes to share, and again, I hope I'm not merely stating the obvious.
The Great Lighthouse isn't that great. I scored it but I've just now settled my 5th city, and haven't made contact with another civ. So for most of the time it was worth plus one trade route, none foreign. (I had currency and four cities).
The Colossus will have a short life span, assuming astronomy is high priority, which should be a no-brainer.
The Pyramids were easy enough to get. I probably haven't maximized the dividends, though, as the most specialists I ran, ever, was three. I just needed production in Carthage and sometimes I needed to maximize food to make up for whipping, say, the Colossus.
I failed to pick up a religion. I was hoping for Confucianism but got beat by a few turns. Christianity and Taoism also got founded. I don't think getting a religion is key, but in a couple prince games putting missionaries on caravels netted some easy allies. We know there's going to be at least two not particularly religious civs out there, too.
I'd say that of the early wonders, the Pyramids may be the best one and was no sweat to pick up, even without stone. Wonders just don't get built as quickly on this sort of map. The Great Lighthouse isn't as good as it usually is. The Oracle should be possible but would require a research detour-- it may be worth it if we decide to make Code of Laws and a religious strategy a priority. The Colossus will go obsolete quickly. What am I missing? We should have a shot at most of the early ones, but I'd hesitate to go too far off the astronomy track.
I never saw a barbarian, incidentally. When I mentioned that hunting might be needed, I was thinking of ivory for the luxury resource.
Again, all this may be glaringly basic stuff but I thought I'd throw it out there.
. But being financial on a water map, we certainly wont miss it.
as early as possible. So I'd say BW > wheel > pottery for starters.
there, thinking wheel and pottery were more important than they are at this point on a water map. We have so many clams that we can probably wait a bit on agriculture, even to the point of waiting to be able to trade for it.
, as the rice is irrigated, but it is certainly of limited importance, maybe even to the point of going wheel-pottery after masonry before agri, however agri gives a pottery discount, so perhaps agri-wheel-pottery-AH-writing after masonry? (with possibility of going hunting-archery some point if necessary, however I think we should be able to fog bust pretty much our whole island without trouble given the settings.)
. Won't push it though, just making a case here 
