Both river starts look fine for me.
But I'd really prefer if someone (bed_head, for example, or someone late in the roster) plays about 40 turns into it.
If we find ourself with an AI Civ on a smaller landmass, it is pretty futile to continue.
Or at least, we have to completely change our strategy - 2 cities, 2 Barracks, and military.
Roster is fine for me (though oddly alternating between Scandinavians and Germans

).
One thing I'd like to point out: The prebuild city. In my Sid SG trial, we screwed that up completely...
To have a good shot at the GLib: City must be #2, maybe #3. Must have some kind of bonus tile. Unless it's a really good spot, build
nothing there except a Temple first (otherwise we need to run high lux tax solely for that city), and then prebuild. If it grows slowly, join Workers once we somehow can afford it.
Techs to get are Pottery and CB ASAP.