Oh sorry, I haven't looked at this for a while.
It wasn't a three cow start, but yes, the start was great! Basically I used, maximum growth. Flood plains and an FP wheat with no disease so far. The second city shared the FP wheat to make workers. The third city got a plains cow (warrior/worker), and the fourth a plains wheat. First city became a 2 turn settler factory after the granary. And there were a few other settlers by some random cities. The agricultural trait definitely helped. I think it should be banned or nerfed because I now realize that it is seriously overpowered. How is it possible that I have ~50% of the population?! (Denyd has ~25%.)
All I realized was that since we're playing on accelerated production, worker counts need to double to be able to keep up with the rapid population growth. So I set my capital to settlers and my first two cities to workers and irrigated like heck.
That said, I would never make other people pay me tribute. That would be mean. (I wish it were possible to win by diplomatic victory, but I guess human players wouldn't normally allow it.) But I guess if you would like to give me something that'd be great, thanks!
I've met everyone, so I'll say this: I'm normally a builder, not a warmonger, so unless you force me into battle, you'll be safe from me.
(Who's thinking modern age space race? That's right! Me!)