First city--settle on cows?

[Gliese 581]

But gilese, I start with fishing. My initial build is a boat and I'm working max production tiles to get there. So the extra food does help me grow a bit quicker.

The americans start with good techs here in which case I'm usually loath to build WBs first. I prefer to go for worker first since that speeds up expansion.
Well it's not like you settled on gold or anything, I don't think this decision will ruin your game. I just don't think it's optimal. Jumbos usually means jungle is not far off though and jungle = good land so hopefully there are more good spots than the capital around.

 

[futurehermit]

I don't know if it is optimal or not, but settling on the cows gives one very strong city. The long-term in this case isn't that far away as the two gold pits will allow fast research of monarchy and then CS (likely available in the BC era or shortly after). The health cap would be the only thing holding this city back.

 

[Randomrandy]

build south of cows

 

[Skallagrimson]

build south of cows

Swap clams for a desert, and two unknowns! Brilliant!

 

[Kesshi]

Swap clams for a desert, and two unknowns! Brilliant!

And the ability to pasture the Cows.

1s of the Cows really is the best spot, even with knowing the information of the southern area.

 

[Bleys]

Cap can also be moved later, to a more central, commerce spot, find a river in the Jungle, and drop down a new Capitol.

 

[brianb1974]

Per request, here's the autosave. I've been playing it wonder-spam style, growing relatively slowly, and not taking any AI cities.

I founded my 2nd city to get stone (and copper) and my 3rd city to get marble as soon as my capital could grow and whip again.

It's 800BC, and I'm just about to have my 2nd city whip off a settler for the fourth city, which won't get me any more resources, but will have floodplains, an elephant, and a cow to work.

In exchange for slower growth, Washington has built Stonehenge, Oracle (for Metal Casting), Pyramids, and the Great Lighthouse. Colossus is almost done, and Hanging Gardens will follow. So far, I've only lost the Great Wall and Temple of Artemis, and I may not lose many more.

And I founded confucianism, which is the only religion among this 11-civ continent, which is now pretty much a love-fest. The other 7 civs got the first 3 religions, and must be beating themselves up.

My first GP was a scientist (at about 10% odds), which turned out to be good. I didn't have the religion yet, and was planning to settle the prophet I expected to get. An academy in the capital was welcome. Just got the 2nd GP which was a priest for the shrine, which is making me 17 gold per turn. With 3 cities, I'm running a small surplus at 100% science, so I really need to get a couple more cities down. Especially since I build lighthouse and almost collossus, so spamming along the coast will be profitable.

Victoria grabbed one city sight just north of Washington. Joao and Ramesses are completely choked off by woodsmen axemen, and keeping me flush with workers until I get around to taking their capitals. Predictably, a couple barb cities popped up in the unsettled land, but they're nowhere I need to settle soon. Civil service is right around the corner. I hope to have Washington build almost all the non-artist non-spy wonders left in the game. I think New York will build the artist wonders.

--EDIT--posted a save from my vanilla folder by mistake. Here's the correct one.

 

[Kesshi]

Ack, Vanilla civ. And I don't know where my CD is.

 

[Dirk1302]

I'd settle 2S, there's so much food there that the plain tiles will be useful rather early in the game.