akots
Poet
@Anarres: You should not have rushed the settler there. Just hate to waste cash. But I rebuilt it in 7 turns. Not a big deal after all. 
Re jumping the Palace. There is no time to build up infra there and it would not really help a lot. On Sid corruption is really bad everywhere. And we might indeed consider abandoning one city though the benefit seems small. Roughly around 3-4 gpt or may be up to 10-12 gpt. Our starting build was very luxurious hence the result. Regarding dot map: it is all the same to the north and north-west of the lake, so just put as many cities as possibly can be squeezed in there. Every rushed settler pays off in about 10 turns cutting the upkeep and bringing 1-2 tax collectors (or scientists). After Japan is eliminated, there would be room for many additional cities.
May be even an army with two elite pikes or elite and vet pike have a chance of not being attacked if landed on American continent. IIRC we have at least one elite pike. Just need a leader. It would be also nice to pillage coal on Zulu territory but we are at peace atm. And two of our armies have 4 units loaded, so they are stuck on the continent till transports.
IMO, America is going to win 20K slightly earlier than 100K, may be even 80 turns if they build a few IA wonders including ToE and Hoover. But not sure if they can build Hoover in Washington. SOme of the wonders have not been doubled yet.

Re jumping the Palace. There is no time to build up infra there and it would not really help a lot. On Sid corruption is really bad everywhere. And we might indeed consider abandoning one city though the benefit seems small. Roughly around 3-4 gpt or may be up to 10-12 gpt. Our starting build was very luxurious hence the result. Regarding dot map: it is all the same to the north and north-west of the lake, so just put as many cities as possibly can be squeezed in there. Every rushed settler pays off in about 10 turns cutting the upkeep and bringing 1-2 tax collectors (or scientists). After Japan is eliminated, there would be room for many additional cities.
May be even an army with two elite pikes or elite and vet pike have a chance of not being attacked if landed on American continent. IIRC we have at least one elite pike. Just need a leader. It would be also nice to pillage coal on Zulu territory but we are at peace atm. And two of our armies have 4 units loaded, so they are stuck on the continent till transports.

IMO, America is going to win 20K slightly earlier than 100K, may be even 80 turns if they build a few IA wonders including ToE and Hoover. But not sure if they can build Hoover in Washington. SOme of the wonders have not been doubled yet.