Yeah that's unfortunate. Sometimes early war with the AI just can't be avoided, even if you do everything right. I can give you my opinion, it may or may not have changed the outcome of the game though. But it might help with future games.
- For your immediate neighbors, trying to establish good relations early can be helpful in avoiding war. For some reason, if you declare war on your neighbor early on in the first 20 turns or so and then settle for peace after a handful of turns, the AI will sometimes ask for a declaration of friendship right after. Morocco is pretty consistent with this, Netherlands less so but he'll still do it sometimes. Once friends with an AI, you can usually keep being friends for 100+ turns if you don't make them mad. They won't go to war with you when you are friends.
- If the above doesn't work, you can always bribe another AI to go to war with Netherlands/Morocco. This might have been tough to pull off on turn 55 but should be doable at turn 75, especially if you have someone like Attila or Askia who are usually pretty cheap to bribe. On continents, this might be more difficult since you won't meet all the AIs right away (it looks like you have only met Netherlands and Morocco).
- Is Sigtuna on the salt tile? Salt is one of the best improved tiles throughout the game, it's better to work it than to settle on it. If you settled Sigtuna on the hill 1 tile north you would have the salt in the first ring and gotten a better city defense value. Sigtuna is settled pretty aggressively though, Morocco may have declared war on you for that no matter what.
- Between turns 55 and 75, your cities have grown 2 sizes and are still building granaries. Part of that is due to the wars no doubt, but even Birka is taking 14 turns to grow and Stockholm 9 turns in your second screenshot. I think more focus on growing would help your games move faster. For instance, Birka could be working the cow for 3 food, the deer for 2 (3 when granary finishes), and a farmed tile adjacent to the lake for 3 food. Stockholm could have chopped some trees to get some extra production. Early growth snowballs, that extra worker gives more food and production to grow and build faster, and gives you more science too.
- This is personal opinion and might not have been better than what you did: I usually only build 2 settlers when going tradition. A lot of times I can scrape 500 gold together to buy a settler when I'm building my first or second settler. A trick I do is declare war on my neighbor and steal a worker in the first 20 turns (on certain maps even within the first 10 turns), bring the worker back to the capital and improve a luxury, settle for peace and sell that luxury for 240 gold. You can also sell your embassy if you have writing for 35 gold, and you can trade gpt for gold when settling for peace. This helps to get 500 gold for a settler early on. The 10 extra turns to build a 3rd settler is a lot early on, like 2 city sizes and 1.5 to 2 buildings. If I can't get 500 gold and the settler takes more than 6 or so turns to build, I'll skip it and go 3 city nc, planting 1 or 2 cities when the national college finishes. Again it's just personal playstyle and might not have changed anything in your game.
- Capitol build order looks good. If I find an early culture ruin, I'll skip the monument when going tradition (you still need it for liberty). I sometimes build a shrine after the second scout if I haven't found any religious city states or faith wonders nearby and can get a good pantheon for my starting area. I might delay settlers by a turn or two if it means growing to size 4 and I have 4 hills/production tiles to work. All this is game/map dependent.
- Your map is mostly flat with a ton of forests and jungles, and trapping and sailing luxuries at your cap. That's a tough break. Unfortuantely your game might have been slow no matter what you did.
Thanks again for all the tips in the thread I've read through all of it now
