Lurker:
France would be great as their UU would probably come right on time. The number of civs should not hurt you at Monarch, but the huts could change that. This is due to the potential to get many of the AA techs out and around so soon.
You could be facing tougher units, before you have much in the way of techs. They will also get to pikes sooner, making the early progress a bugger. One of the this that keeps you from getting killed very early is not seeing swords right away with the 650 CF. Huts could make it nearly immediately available.