Some great questions raised and points made.
@Trynthlas: My memory’s not perfect (some would say it's worse than that
) but, IIRC, my initial build order was worker > warrior > WB. The worker obviously pastured the pigs first and then the horses before setting off to mine the hill 1S of the city. Shaka’s stolen worker roaded in the pigs and then joined worker 1 mining the hill 2W, 1S of the city. The early tile arrangement was pigs, horses (to finish the warrior and start the WB) and I remember then finishing the WB working the 2H hill temporarily to expedite it’s production. As mentioned in my earlier posts, the key with this start IMHO is that the early happy cap is very low, so hammers are preferable to growth (and then whipping), otherwise you’ll just end up with unhappy citizens.
I then built a barracks working the pigs, clams, horses and mine 1S of the city, joined then by the mine 2W 1S of the city) and started on WCs. With 12 hammers available per turn from this arrangement, I could produce a WC in four turns, 3 if there was overflow. With that in mind, I built two WCs, finishing the second on the very turn the city grew to 6 pop. The third WC then got produced with a two pop whip (zero hammers invested in its build) to get rid of the unhappy citizen and I then produced subsequent WCs by working the clams (for commerce), horses and two mines to maximise production. The pigs were only worked again when whip weariness subsided.
That meant that I had four chariots ready to take on Shaka – indeed, I actually wanted a few more. However, Shaka sealed an earlier than intended DoW when he decided to send one of his archers out to the tile 1NW of his capital (possibly to reinforce the garrison in uMgun) – so I decided to DoW earlier than I wanted, to prevent the archer returning to the city.
That’s where the real story – the early luck I enjoyed with the RNG in combat - began. You see, not only did I manage to kill Shaka’s archer 1NW of Ulundi (at 68% odds according to the log) but also the sole remaining garrison archer in the city. By right’s the attacking WC should’ve died, since the odds were around 34%. Moreover, my luck continued when I rolled the two remaining WCs north into uMgun to find just a single archer garrison...which my first chariot finished off at odds of just 28%.
As a result, there I was with my army completely intact (against all the odds) and capable of building WCs in 3-4 turns with a hammer heavy setup in Thebes. Moreover, other WCs were going to arrive in Ulundi quite rapidly from Thebes since my two workers had (almost) connected the two cities ahead of the Shaka DoW. Having already met scouts from Charlie and Mansa at this point, I therefore decided to keep producing WCs and see if it was possible to take one or both of them out. After healing up, I therefore scouted directly south and SW of Ulundi (down the coast nearest to Thebes, hoping another AI was close by) and stumbled on Charlie and Mansa’s starts.
By the time I had explored the area a little more, I had a another two IIRC chariots in addition to the four Shaka veterans to take on Charlie. The reason I went ahead was because I’d (mistakenly probably) promoted two of the Shaka veterans up the flanking line, so I had two flanking II chariots to use as suicide units against Charlie's protective archers. Sadly, I recall that I lost one or both of them in that war, as my good RNG luck started to abate. However, thanks to a barracks and reinforcements from Ulundi (aided by a chop or two IIRC from my two workers), I managed to have 11 WCs in two stacks ready to take down Mansa. Sadly, more than a few chariots were lost during that conflict as my RNG luck evened itself out. Given the fact that the economy was also starting to struggle at that point, I therefore decided to reign in the WCs and send them off for fogbusting duty and to explore SE of Mansa...only to realise very shortly after that JC was right next door!
That BTW brings me to your point vranasm. I completely agree that, in retrospect, the best course of action may well have been to take down JC after Shaka, and so avoid the praets. However, this is why I invited anyone looking in on the immortal cookbook to post a youtube style playthrough: (i) to see if it’s possible and (ii) to explain on camera their logic in scouting out down the eastern coast (where you’d eventually find JC SE of Mansa) rather than scout the land S and SW of Ulundi. It may well be that the movements of the starting scouts and warriors means that a civver locates Rome and rushes it before DoWing Charlie and Mansa...but I’d like to see them doing it playing the map as blind as they can, rather than play the map in hindsight.
Indeed, just for kicks, given the discussion I’ve had on the immortal cookbook thread about BC finishes, I did actually try continuing on from my 1500 BC save (note: this was after I’d quit my playthrough in the ADs in sheer boredom), just to see the result. Sad to say however that JC had settled about five or six cities by then IIRC – and had walls around Rome (as you can see from my 1500 BC save) which saw more than a few WCs lost. As a result, whilst I got Rome and one other city to fall, it left the Egyptian empire with a lone WC to continue the fight. Where was the RNG when I needed it?
As a result, Ive no doubt that playing from whichever save wins this round will prove much more fun. 
However, my main point was expanding faster (chop those settlers out!) and you could (for example) have grabbed the spot where that barbarian city is now before it spawned. For peaceful expansion I would have aimed to have at least all 6 of the spots you have picked out (which are good spots!) already up and running, including that silver you mention.
Seriously, it’s eminently winnable.
Thanks for the pointer. 
