Finished it. I stayed up late the last few nights in order to do so...
For the second game of Civilization, that I've played in a long time, I was very pressed by the challenges herein.
First was the map itself, it took me a while before I realized that it was an entire map of archipelagos. I should have pushed for a more comprehensive direction in maritime technologies, in order to find the other civilizations faster and get some trade caravans to their cities. But by the time I had settled upon a development strategy, I was halfway through the technology tree, and decided just to keep going on without making any further attempts at establishing trade routes, besides the 3 from the "(Santa's) Workshop" city to the Babylonians.
For the longest time, I debated whether to make a serious effort at colonizing off the continent, or just to stay put. I made some half hearted attempts at both, always keeping in mind that I could just dismantle the cities I didn't like, or that would be too difficult to defend or keep linked logistically. I stayed below size 4, till around 1 AD. At which point I decided that I would just go with what I had already established. I still wonder, if I would have simply just crammed my starting continent with 15 cities and switched to a republic a thousand years earlier, if that would have gotten me to space flight sooner (?).
I found the map quite interesting. The creative work was very refreshing for someone like me, who has never seen a "designed" map before. So much so, that I even delayed the launching of the spaceship by 180 years, just so that my cruisers could fully uncover it. Thank you for your work there, simonnomis.
Another thing, is that I was under the assumption that I needed Nuclear Power to make all the spaceship parts. So I researched for an additional 240 years needlessly. Once I realized the error, I switched off research completely, and accumulated some cash while waiting for the cruisers to finish.
The second great challenge was, the limit on any aggression or the limit on my ability to wage any wars, by the game designer. I can proudly say that; I never declared war on any other civilization, nor did I ever attack any of their units once they declared on me (or after they sneak attacked me). All casualties that appear in the F2 screen, are due to defensive actions only. I used diplomats to "Meet With The King" and after giving in to their demands, managed to get peace again - on several occasions. So Santa Clause, and the Elves, most certainly stayed benign and peaceful throughout the entire game.
I launched the spaceship, but it landed between the turn counter. The save file I uploaded contains the spaceship in flight, where if you hit "end of turn" you'll see that it has landed but the game continues. I played for several turns beyond that, hoping that it would click in, but it doesn't. So we'll have to call it a landing in 760 AD. If I were to replay the game, with what I know now, I'm certain that I could knock it down to a landing before 500 AD.
Thank you very much for this game. It really required me to think, and forced some hard decisions in the process. I enjoyed that.
