I always ask myself why especially the beginners get such horrible maps. Maybe it's because Pangaea is a rich mapscript and they usually don't play it, but seriously, a Jungle map that has a 5 food capital and then no 2nd city spot that has food accessable without IW or that isn't completely Jungled?
Doesn't matter, the last map you got is imo. ok or even great
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First of all: It's not intuitive, but you can farm Pigs + Cows and you can also Mine Pigs and Sheep if they're on a Hill. By that you can skip researching a very costly tech which is Animal Husbandry. I write that because on your screens you have a capital with Corn + a farmed FP and are probably researching AH for pasturing the Pigs. AH for Horses is a good idea because you don't have Copper yet, but in the case of that capital you should nonetheless mine the Pigs because you already are at +7
and +6-8
surplus is what you should aim for (this answers your question whether to farm or cottage FPs) .
Regarding the opening in general. After 5y of non-stop CIVving but already earlier I found out that Worker, Warriors 'til size 3 and then Settler gives you the fastest Settler in almost any case. If your land is very highly contested and there is a spot for a 2nd city that you
must take, then it's Settler at size 2. If the land is not much contested, then you can go Settler at size 4 or even 5 if you have very many sources of
. If you research BW, the fastest Settler is at size 4 with a 2-pop-whip. Whipping size 6 -> 3 is the most efficient, however whipping 4 -> 2 or 5 -> 3 gives you the first Settlers so much earlier that it's definitely worth it if the land is contested.
Whipping without a Granary is not very efficient btw. so unless you really need BW for Barb-defense I wouldn't research it but beeline Alpha. This contradicts the advice you've been given afaik. It fits with my advice above though. Research AH or BW for the strategic resource, if you have a strategic resource you're fine, don't research it for its extra abilities but then better beeline Alpha and trade for all minor techs in one big pack. Beelining Alpha is the strongest approach there is and some players still not have adapted towards it because some years ago it was the belief that researching all the minor techs to get the benefit of the improvements is worth it, this is only in very few cases true. For BW + TW + Pottery or for BW + Sailing + Pottery or whatever you can get Alpha and you don't need BW + AH in the beginning, decide for one if you play with Barbs, if you play without them like me or can do with only Warriors (difficult but possible, because Barbs cannot spawn in a 5x5 area around a unit so you can use Wariors offensively to prevent the Barb spawn in first place) you can skip both, try to get Alpha as early as possible as it's basically "free" if you can skip 2-3 techs to get it.
Regarding your map in specific: The difficult thing on that map is to find the right city spots. 1S of the Pigs is one, it's the strongest spot you could have for a 2nd city. Because the area with the Golds is so very valuable because there are just so many resources I'd settle a city 1NW of the western Wine. Gets you 3 Golds, you'll need to farm some FPs to work them and the city has no "real" source of
but it's a good one with claiming 5 resources and will make a lot of
later. Maybe you can get away with founding the Pigs city 2nd, it's especially so good because it has a real source of
(and a strong one) , Forests and will also have an instant river-connection towards your capital if you road the tile from your capital towards the river, giving you a Traderoute (TR) .
The next valuable city spots that you should claim are the Cows towards the south (best probable location 1SW of them to have them accessable from the start, if you were CRE I'd advise you to settle them in the 2nd ring and settle near the river for freshwater) and then a spot that you really
need to get but that will probably not be contested until very late are the Elephants. I'd settle on the Ivory because it's coastal, it's a 2
tile and the spot has some FPs which you can use as a source of
(in that case, because you want at least +6
surplus you'll need to farm them both) .
The Plains-Cows / Furs spot towards the west is not very valuable as you'll get the Furs with the next borderpop from the capital anyhow (make sure to improve them, early Luxury is very important, especially with whipping) and Plains Cows are not really a "real" source of
, they're more like a hill that gives
.
So that would be the order in which i settle, eastern Pigs if possible, then the FPs / Gold spot to claim a lot of resources, then the southern Cows because it's a good spot that must not be taken by the AI towards the south and on the Ivory as a 4th city and the Plains Cows are only as a filler-city for later. This gives you 4 cities (+1 filler-city later = 5 at max) . Now normally you should get 6-7 cities if you peacefully settle because you need 6 cities on standard map size for certain National Wonders, 6-7 cities is optimal for a Cuirrs rush also though. This map however is a special case because you have Ivory and Ivory is always a special case as War Elephants are a superior unit that completely changes the gameplay. With Ivory you'll definitely want to go for an Elephants + Catapult rush (called "Elepult" ) and for that one 3-4 cities are optimal, this fits very well with the city-spots that I named, just settle the first 4 and leave the Plains-Cows-filler-city for until after the rush.
Regarding the start from before: It's very important to improve the strongest source of
first and that would have been the Corn. Workers also multiply by their actions with time, that's why Worker first would have been the right choice. The seafood is good because it gives
, with FIN you can count every coastal tile as a Cottage so that would have allowed you to skip Cottages for a while. You in that case should have researched BW definitely because you'd not have been able to get out 2 WBs with the city growing as fast as it would have and with the land not being contested I'd have proposed Settlers at size 5.
Hth
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I think I got to the point where I realized I had a huge power lead and I wanted to just win as ugly as possible on Prince because I had been trying for the better part of a year on and off for a prince win. 
Anyway, gonna make some savings on unit supply from now one 
