Having such a difficult starting area, along with new rules really makes the Ancient Era very interesting on this map. It took me until about 500BC before I really figured out what I was doing without pop rushing! Even then I kept getting into wars that I hadn't built up enough for, just out of habit
That the game is on Monarch saved me though, if I had played this way on an Emperor game I might not have done too well.
I started out building ICS style, there really wasn't room for anything else. I kept tech at close to 100% for a change, but always seemed to be a turn or two behind. I sent a couple Archers and a Spearman up to look around the French holdings, the French had popped some barbs on my 2 Scouts earlier. I saw 2 French Workers unprotected, and so started the war. One of the Workers became a colony on the Iron, and I had a Settler found a city on the nearest Horses. Being Industrious was a godsend on this map, as building roads over the hills and mountains didn't take long. I kept sending lone Swordsmen on the attack, really screwed up by not waiting to mass my troops. Still I was able to carve out some territory for my Settlers who were following. I couldn't take Paris at the time, so I just build several cities nearby and made peace. The French and I were evenly matched, so no compensation was recieved for signing the treaty.
The Russians decided I should pay tribute to them about this time, the fools. I sent several Swordsmen to take out their Iron supply, but other than capturing 1 city and razing another, nothing else happened the whole war. I did get all the techs I had missed out on for signing peace with the Russians though, and a couple worthless cities which I just ended up gifting to the Japanese.
Then I turned my gaze back on the rich (relatively speaking) lands of the French. My few remaining Russian expedition forces doubled back and combined with the newly produced Horsemen from the south, made short work of the remaining French cities. I allowed the French to keep 1 isolated tundra city at least until Knights showed up. Once I had finished, I switched to a Republic and disbanded all my Swordsmen. Only 3 Horsemen had survived the fighting (I hadn't produced many), and I kept them around to upgrade later. I found it was faster and cheaper to not do any researching, just buying up techs everyone else had already.
Once I had Chivalry, I returned to the warpath. I held back until I had 5 Knights, and then started taking Russian cities. I cut off their Iron very quickly, and only had to fight 1 Knight of theirs because of it. During the fighting, Washington made his appearance, and when Dallas was founded near where Moscow had been, the Forbidden Palace was rushed. I also disbanded Washington (my capitol, not my leader!) about this time, and the Palace jumped to the city I wanted it to (my only one over size 3 at the time). This city was right next to Paris, and finally my empire was productive.
I had mapped out most of the World by now, and was the first to make contact with any of the others. The Egyptians were well behind, but I sold their contact around for a few techs and world maps. The next turn they had caught up (at least 5 techs) even though they had no visable income, at least that they would offer to me for the same tech. I renegotiated some peace treaties, hoping I had enough of a power lead to demand some cities. I did get a couple, but they were pop rushed into oblivion previously by the AI, and so I gave most of them right back.
)and went westwards to the Russians. Managed to conquer Moscow an some satelite cities. But then my conquest stoped - gunpowder was invented stopping my swordsmen quickly. I made peace and built some border defences with musketmen.. In the meantime I started to explore the map and got a settler down to the three spice. At that point I controlled gems, incense and spices.
