Thanks for a fun and challenging game!
It's nice to see the occasional game that is Resource-poor, and this map fit that role quite well.
I was not very enthusiastic about our initial starting location... I decided that if the Scout found nothing to the west, I would send our Settler to the east, as only having Dry Rice for a capital makes for a pretty sad state of affairs.
With only a Magical Fish being revealed, I hesitated quite a bit, as I told myself that I'd only head west if I saw two or more seafood Resources, but then I feared that I might not even find that much elsewhere, given the initially-revealed lone Dry Rice Resource. So, after some pondering, I resolved myself to settling a capital with only a Fish (at least Magical), Dry Rice, and a lone GH square.
Later, I felt that the start was "reasonably fair" in that there was also a Magical Fish to go with the Dry Rice to the east, but from the
where everyone settled map, it unfortunately seems that not everyone got even at least a Magical Fish.
Being Expansive and short on Resources, plus starting with several early-game techs, I went for a fast Granary, but then found myself constantly battling Whipping Unhappiness issues. So, I settled what few Happiness Resources I could find (Gold, thankfully, but in a very Food-poor location) and I think that I grabbed Ivory with my 5th City.
Capturing AIs' lands was not an amazing prospect, as it was hard to drum up an army and many of their Cities were Food-poor, as well.
Getting The Great Lighthouse on this map would have helped a lot, but Huayna scooped it up while I was still struggling through Whipping Unhappiness issues.
It was very hard to deal with Maintenance on this map and I often had to build Courthouses prior to building Lighthouses and Forges, even in Cities where their sole source of Food came from a seafood Resource and thus where it would have been nice to have gotten at least a Lighthouse first, if not also a Forge first.
The Minor Civ caused a lot of havoc with my seafood Resources and my boats, and I didn't get much help from the AIs, but otherwise, it launched zero invasions. Indeed, until Julius, the Minor Civ's Leader, got Grenadiers, I was able to slowly take his Cities as though they were Barb Cities just waiting to be taken.
Montezuma, whom you will often find getting stuck with starts in the Jungle, seemed to prioritize settling islands with Jungle on them; it's as though he intentionally creates himself an empire in the Jungles; I wouldn't be surprised to see such a situation designed into the game's code.
The Colossus would have also been quite helpful on this map, as there weren't many (any?) Rivers, there weren't a lot of great Commerce Resources, and there wasn't a plethora of Cottageable land. But, alas, I don't think that I built any early-to-mid-game Wonders other than The Taj Mahal with a Great Engineer that I'd saved for about 70 turns or more.
I also didn't get an Academy for a long time--I was at a 0% Science rate, so I settled my first Great Scientist and then used other Great People for Lightbulbing.
It's nice to get challenging maps from time to time, but perhaps we could have done with a hint that we should plan to move our Settler (settling in place would have been very terrible, as doing so would have eliminated the use of one of our continent's limited three Food Resources). Playing on a much smaller map (Tiny) but at Epic speed and with a tough start would also make for a more endurable game. I still had a lot of fun with this map, and I'm happy for the experience, so thanks go out to the staff for yet another great game!
Hopefully something in this spoiler tread jogs my mind....
Hibernation is seeming like an attractive alternative.
