This is a bit lengthy post. Just read the part that interests you (probably the part about your own game). I hope I haven't insulted someone. It's just my way to look at it, nothing more.
Oh! One more thing: Roland, how did you do that in-game dotmapping????
You can zoom out until you see the clouds appearing and then the buttons above the minimap change. The most left one is called the strategy layer and it allows you to put signs on the map and to draw on the map. Signs can also be placed on the map whenever you press ALT-s
About going for a religion. Many seem to think that they would have a good chance to win a religion race with an AI when they went for the same religion technology. That is not true with this game start and these starting tiles. The ones who won a race to a starting religion (that includes me) were just lucky. We gambled and won. Of course, it is a positive thing to have a holy city, but we were just lucky.
For instance:
Meditation costs 119 for us. We can research at a rate of 10 during the starting turns because we can use a tile that gives us 1 extra commerce. Because you get one free research point and a bonus of 20% due to the knowledge of one prerequisite technology (mysticism), you get to 11*1.2=13 research points per turn. Therefore, it will take 10 turns to research meditation (9*13=117). Growing to size 2 won't help you to get it quicker, it takes too long.
Meditation costs 104 for the AI. The AI has a minimal research output of 9 (not using a commerce tile, just palace and center tile). So an AI who starts with mysticism gets 1.2 * (9+1)=12 research point per turn. Therefore, it will take the AI 9 turns to research meditation.
We were just lucky that Brennus didn't choose to research Polyetheism at the start. If we had started with a 2 commerce tile (say an oasis), then we would have stood a very good chance to win a religion race with the AI going for the same religion.
Okay, now about game analysis.
My own game: After settling on the spot (trusting the placement algorithm that the hidden tiles would be good), I saw 6 good tiles, grassland ivory, grassland cow, 2 grassland hills, floodplain and a river banana. These tiles are good tiles (in my opinion) because after some basic tile improvements, using any of them will invest 2 hammers per turn in a worker or a settler. It is clear that the grassland cow and the grassland ivory are good. But the irrigated banana tile that I'm using is also nice. It produces 4 food, 1 commerce. After feeding the population that leaves 2 food, 1 commerce to invest in my empire. The food can be used to grow the city, pop-rushing or building settlers or workers. The 1 commerce is a nice extra. While using pop-rushing or building workers or settlers, the tile is superior to a mined grassland hill. Of course, I will build a plantation on that spot when it becomes available.
Because so many good tiles were available to the capital, I chose to grow my city a bit bigger before building a settler. That's why my city is size 4 and I don't have a settler out yet. I could have pop rushed, but that would reduce the production power of my capital which would not have helped in the long run. Pop-rushing is good when you get near the happiness cap or when there are no good tiles to use. Both are not the case in my capital.
While I don't have a settler out yet, I can build workers and settlers very fast and I have a barracks to produce experienced units. The barracks is not that important, but it is nice when the barbarians start to appear (which will be soon). I just built it because there was not a lot of better things to do while the capital was growing.
My city will also produce some commerce when I plant a cottage on the floodplain and grow to size 5. So I will be able to pay the maintenance for the continued expansion. So I went for a more long term expansion plan compared to a fast 2-nd city.
I was lucky when exploring. The fact that my explorer survived an early encounter with a bear (3 turns after he was created) allowed it to continue on to pop 2 or 3 goody huts. But I do value early expansion because it allows you to place your cities better and take into account the placement of future cities when placing your second city. So if I would have lost some units, then I would have created some new warriors to explore and the barracks would not have been completed before I started the settler. And I would of course have a little less knowledge about the world because my newly build warriors would need to walk to the edge of the fog of war again. I was also lucky that 2 out of 4 (I believe) huts gave me a technology.
The large area of exploration was partly due to the fact that the explorer won a number of battles and got a woodsman II promotion. It can now quickly explore the jungle in the south.
I improved the rice for a future city and to be able to connect it with roads for health benefits when my worker didn't have anything better to do.
In so far my approach.
Shyuhe: Looks good. About to connect copper. But I don't like the placement of that city. I do understand why you placed it there. It will be a good city, but it seems a bit of a waste of some good coastal tiles and I just don't want to waste good tiles (purely a personal preference). Also coastal cities give far better trade routes.
You are going for another city. I think you pop rushed with the idea that you would grow back while building a barracks (or something). However, the gold site made you rethink that. I agree with that, but the small city is not a fast settler and worker builder and you also need some units to defend your 3 city empire. I guess that you will (need to) stop expanding for a while after that third city to get some workers and units and get your cities a bit larger and more productive.
Were you talking about the gold site when you were being secretive about an important resource?
Ojevind: I very often go worker first or at least very early. A cow tile gives you 1 food after feeding the population. An improved cow tile gives you 2 food and 2 hammers after feeding the population. The value of tile improvements is huge, often easily doubling the nett output of the tile and will greatly improve your capital and thus the growth rate of your empire.
The area to the north of the capital is actually very promising and I would have explored it early. You have explored a significant part of the world. I would have explored a bit more to find settling positions. For instance, I would have chosen to explore the area around the gold. It seems like you discovered the area early.
I would have chosen a more productive second city site. I think it is quite impossible to block Bismarcks expansion because there is not a really good choking point. Blocking can be an interesting option sometimes, but I don't think it will work here. And Brennus can still expand freely. I think going for your own strength instead of limiting the strength of others is better in the very early game. But I'm more of a builder than a warmonger, I guess.
fbelintani: Your settler looks vulnerable. I don't think one escort of a settler is the best way to get it to a settling spot safe. If you have one or two units that are a few steps ahead of the settler, then they can make sure that there are no animals in the region that could attack the settler and the settler can move at full speed, not limited by the speed of the warrior. This works best when there are some hills so that you don't need many fogbusting units. One warrior is very vulnerable to animals.
I think that agriculture is more useful than fishing. There is some rice in the neighbourhood.
Exploration and capital improvement looks good to me.
pigswill: I like the naming of your capital, but I have better hopes of our empire.
Your worker and setler are in serious danger. There were panthers in the jungle and they could come out of the fog of war.
Your exploration is good enough to find a good settling spot, but if you had explored a bit further then you might have found the gold settling spot (which I think is great). It is a bit of luck to find it of course.
The capital is a bit small, don't actually know why. Did you pop rush? If that is the case, it doesn't help you with the building of the second settler or anything else after that.
You're going for two religions. That's a bit of a gamble. It also takes a while before it pays of. You need two great prophets and twice as many missionaries and only one of your holy cities can contain Wall Street. I wouldn't do it and prefer to go for pottery for the cottages first. It can of course be defended, it's a bit of a gamble and I don't like to gamble.
KMad: I would send the settler toward the gold spot. It is great for our commerce and that can sustain our expansion. The copper spot is of course important too.
Your capital is a bit small, but I guess you pop rushed in anticipation of building the barracks.
Extensive exploration and good terrain improvements.
Cam_H: I would have explored more to the north instead of the south. The jungle area isn't that great for settling. You do have a good settling spot around the gold but it is a bit hard to predict where your other cities will be in the future in relation to that city and your capital, making it hard to get a good layout of your future empire. I always like to plan ahead as you can see when you download my savegame. But I'm a bit extreme in that regard.
After the settler, I would build a warrior to explore the north western region which looks good for settling.
Good terrain improvements.
Cabert: Same comment as to Cam_H about exploring, more to the north, less to the south. I think you should have build the worker earlier or you should have chosen to improve the cows sooner. They are your best tile. See Ojevind, why I think workers early are important.
You haven't found the gold spot yet. It's around the river area which is a good area to explore because the floodplains are good spots to settle. The gold is of course a superb spot to settler when discovered.
Mice: I would have finished exploring the gold spot, it's a good settling spot. It looks as if a unit might have died around that area while exploring so that's just bad luck.
Your settler could easily be eaten by a panther who appears out of the fog of war, the warrior is no full proof defence. If you move fog busters in front of your settler, then they can walk safely towards the settling spot knowing there are no animals in the neighbourhood. It also means that your settler isn't limited by the movement rate of the warrior.
Good exploration and tile improvements.
You also found both the copper and the horses. We were both lucky to find those horses (and silver). But they are probably too far away to use soon. And we might be forced to forget about their existence.
It's fun to see so many approaches to the same game start. Let's see which one we will continue.
I was worried about the unhealthy from the jungles but I think a city one tile south can handle the unhealthy up to size 4 (not sure).
Oh and Roland, nice teching! I'm envious of your RNG luck 
The RNG gods ate all my scouts and gave me junk.
and even while thinking "our UU is great for mining hills" not remembering that we can pre-chop forests without losing a turn having to climb back up there to finish it off later 
here. No big 
, at least. 
in his city. the size difference is just that we made our settlers already waited on growth til after that, you went the opposite direction.
