I made a decision not to settle on the spot but rather 2 moves away. I wouldn't say this was a great decision but it looked good at the time (I never look at other people's spoilers before playing the map). Nonetheless sheep+pig+plains-hill made it a solid spot, marginally better then the original I'd say, only downside is the inland lakes could not be "light-housed".
I settled my second-city near marble to get the oracle-race going. I knew that even with charismatic, on such a map one must adopt hereditary rule and basically stick with it for the whole game. I also made a commitment to adopt a "grow the cities" strategy. Instead of whipping heavily I did almost no whipping at all (saved on civic upkeep costs as well). I thought that since I was isolated getting my cities to grow on as many cottages was imperative (this also meant chopping fewer trees for health). I oracled monarchy...
...and beelined currency after that (with a detour to BW). Eventually I filled out my continent, I avoided city spam to keep my research decent and since I grew my cities anyway they could afford to be spaced out without wasted tiles...
I discovered the other civs. At first I thought Monty/Gilga were isolated from the others. I made a LOT of trades and quickly caught up. For paper alone I probably got about 7-8 techs by brokering as much as possible.
Obviously my immediate concern was that Mao had 2 vassals and was approaching astro (he got it well before me). But I was definitely the 2nd strongest civ on the map. I won the circumnavigation bonus (somehow) and even won lib (libbed astro as nobody but Mao had it). What followed after is a series of declarations from all the AI apart from Hannibal (who plotted on me for over 1000 years but never declared, eventually he stopped plotting) and Gilgamesh. The first attack obviously took a costal city amphibeously (always happens in such games) but I killed it off thanks to drafted maces (had traded for nationalism). In general I made about ~5 nationalism/bureaucracy civic changes so far in this game. Funnily enough the city that Mao took for that brief period of time became an obsession to him, he demanded it during peace negotiations at every opportunity.
I made peace with Mao. Monty then declared (killed his stack easilly and made peace). Then came the biggest war - the 2nd Celto-Chinese war. I knew Mao was plotting on me and I even tracked his tiny navy (4 Galleons of troops) all the way from Beijing to my coastline, so I knew it was coming. I got a DP with Gilga a few turns before (was probably a mistake but I figured Mao would only focus on me anyway). The big surprise about this was not that Mao was a threat, but rather how demanding he was in his peace negotiations. My drafted rifles killed his stack with almost no losses, a 2nd stack he sent a few turns later (also about 4 galleons worth), died as well.
The above screenshot appeared even after I raised one of his biggest cities (which I will cover in more details), killed his colony Pacal (I will also cover this) and killed all his stacks with minimal losses. The big issue is that with his naval advantage (he had lots of frigates as did the Ottomans) I had no way of countering his blocade. Eventually I used the circumnavigation bonus to sneak a small stack (8 rifles 1 treb) accross to Pacal's small continent, I got lucky that he had no frigates in that area when I made that crossing. I owned Pacal despite some bad luck (pikes killing rifles), and took all his cities (and then liberated them)...
...I got Churchill (and protective Redcoats)...
Unfortunately allmost all his land was jungle but he had 4 workers I gave him (stolen from Pacal). I then (after Mao still wanted that same city for peace) used the same 3 Galleons to make another (1 turn) crossing from Churchil's continent to Mao's mainland, the Galleons got wiped out but not before they got my troops into China (those troops were still the original "drafted-legends" that killed Pacal). Since Mao's land-stack was in Sumeria killing Gilgamesh (with rifling I was shocked at how crap Gilgamesh was at defending), I managed to take one of Mao's 16-pop cities (after I suicided the only treb I brought over to give collateral) and raised it
...
The fool however still persisted with the same nonsense (he REALLY wanted me to give him that city he took in the first war). However after I raised his city something unexpected and amazing happened...
"Mehmed (a capitulate) has broken off from Mao Zedong and is once again a free state". I was very pleased at this (even though Gilga was in danger of replacing the Ottomans as Mao's lap-dog), and after making peace with Sulei (he had a lot of frigates on my shores as well) I eventually got a "fair" peace deal from Mao (he gave me 1 gold in a situation where other civs would have capitulated
).
This is where I have stopped playing (will probably finish this off in the week-end). My plan is to draft more rifles (while using bureaucracy for most turns, this is effective on marathon), rebuild work-boats and after getting to steel I plan to upgrade my trebs and attack Mao (this time he won't be able to navally blocade me as my troops will be disembarked at the moment of declaring). He will probably get rifling by then (hopefully not infantry but assembly line takes forever on marathon). I think I have a good chance of winning this but Mao will be much tougher on his own continent, especially once his big stack in Sumeria goes back to China.
. I really struggle with isolated starts and I would love to get some advice. But I am usually to laze to make screenshots and such so I decided to make a youtube video. This is the link to the playlist: http://www.youtube.com/user/GamerJoePresents?feature=mhee#p/c/DFC34AD50BF69740/0/SK-cxKsaWS4
) but he had a lot of trebuchets and killed quite a few of my rifles/cannons before the war was over. Even after taking his capital and two biggest cities he still wouldn't cap (had to switch to nationhood quickly at one point to get reinforcements from my continent). Eventually after city 4 he capped (I made a stupid mistake at city 4 by disembarking over a river, lost a few troops needlessly but I needed to finish the war). 
Anyway the city went there as it has good settler/worker making capability with the flood/corn/mines. Second city went south at the flood/fish which is a decent commerce city. Then I went for the furs as that`s just a great city with the food and commerce.. Fourth city went at pigs/sheep to be a future NE/WS city.
I picked Astro from lib and then started to search for other AI`s. At 1200AD, it seems the AI is pretty slow and this is the tech situation.
. AP is built in Christianity (Mao), but I avoid AP win unless really, really desperate (tundra and desert low food starts, with no rush targets). 
per trade route. My three island cities gave my empire 30
