A lot of strategies are for certain map sizes or difficulty levels. Here are three basic starting strategies for playing the game on standard size maps on Regent, Monarch or Emperor difficulty. Each can be modified to fit your own playing style, and each is a decent plan. They are not strong enough for Deity on a standard map but may be adaptable for Deity on a large or huge map.
For almost all game starts I like to build the first two cities very close to the capital. This makes early defense easy, provides an early production boost, makes it easy to connect these core cities to share luxuries. The downside is that these suburbs can not grow to huge size latter in the game, but a dense build is almost as productive as pop rushing (hurrying production using the whip) without as many long term negatives.
