The no corruption bug certainly should be considered an exploit, and shouldn't be something people try to reproduce in GOTM's. Wizlock stumbling into this is acceptable, people shouldn't be punished for things out of their control. Corruption on this map really won't make a difference of getting a high score most likely, as pop rushing (corruption free production) is going to lead to very early conquests (not quite as early as the first GOTM, but close). Reproducing the no corruption bug would almost invariably involve extensive save/reload before poping the huts and attacking, as getting barbarians from any huts would end your game, and attacking with conscript warriors (or having them attacked by enough barbarians to get them promoted) would usually end up with a dead conscript warrior. I would highly suspect any more games that would claim to have this happen by chance, as this is the first I have heard of this bug on any boards, and so may be the first occurance anyone (of the 1000's registered here, at apolyton, and yahoo) has had.
I thought that the starting location was very good, though having so much jungle nearby is a bit of a problem. Later on in the game, jungle = grasslands with a chance for rubber and coal. On regent, with a luxury, that means you really don't even need temples for happiness until after size 5, and 3 other luxuries are pretty easy to get control of quite early.
I built my capitol right where I was placed, and built a warrior, settler, and then just started flooding the japanese and persians with bowmen. Taking the persian cities gave me horses, and from there I started pop rushing horsemen to fight the babylonians and french. I purposely allowed the japanese and persians to keep their last cities, which was a mistake. Kyoto ended up defecting back to the japanese, and ended up costing me 2 elite archers, and 6 elite horsemen taking it back (plus the time it took to have them go back through the jungle). I've never lost even 1/5th of the horsemen I have so far in this game, just having terrible luck when attacking. Usually I'll lose about 1 in 10 to the "too close to retreat" senario. On this game it has been over half of my attacks end in a dead horsemen, but it will only delay the inevitable
Knowing that it was a continents map, I started the pyramids to switch to the great lighthouse as soon as possible (after 2 archers), and was able to build it by around 700BC. I sent my first several galleys the wrong way though, thinking that the visible sea extension to the north was the way to the other continent, and then after finding it was just a small island, sending the galleys even further north looking for a crossing. Still, by 600BC I had contact with the other continent, and after 2 failed landings, took Thebes. I think if someone gets a good run of luck they could take over the world in the late BC's, with the battle results I usually have in games, I would have had a chance myself. With domination enabled, probably the earliest conquest will win, though a game where someone counts the spaces and makes sure they get just 59% of the landmass till 2050 could have a chance. I might end up trying that, as I don't think my conquest will come early enough to win this one. With a smaller map and domination, it shouldn't take nearly the amount of micromanagement that GOTM2 did.
For raging barbarians, you need to take an active role in defense. Having several units out to kill camps really cuts down on barbarian uprisings. I'm not sure, but I think that barbarian uprisings only occur if any given barbarian encampment is allowed to exist for some time. I haven't had any uprisings so far, and have sacked about 30 camps at least. Also, barbarian encampments are a good source of income, as I have had science at 100% for most of the BC's, and still the treasury grows. 1 spearman on a mountain is enough defense for anything but uprisings (then even 3 or 4 spearmen will sometimes lose), but as I said, uprisings can be avoided.
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