I count 10 cities. I'm not big on sharing tiles on a map like this. It requires double the infrastructure, adds maintenance, loses food to an otherwise strong city and we're already looking at a high city count.
All food asap, yes. We have knowledge of Granaries, Lighthouses, Libraries, Temples and, eventually, Forges, Altars and more. We also have access to happy cap.
Finally, GLH says our cities are basically free.
Steel asap. I think this is more a result of the tech path than it is dependent on the settling pattern. Steel is a long way ; more cities sooner will get us there faster.
It's a little different for CoL asap. I can see us taking a light approach between cities 7 and 10, so as to speed it up. Then settling the last 3 in a quick wave.
I also like fish / rice 2nd ring but it has to start on a brown mine for 10 turns
It also hurts my dotmap (I want that one riverside, 1S of the rice) but it is conceivable to settle this fish 1st ring with a workboat from Teotihuacan.... Gotcha, you grab the iron with that spot and that eases up the location for sheep/marble. I think the plains mine is ok to start with. It's convenient to have some amount of natural hammers in a double food city. Actually, the more I look at this spot, the more I like it (even without the iron).
10 turns working the mine (waiting on border pop) represents a workboat and half a Granary. I don't think it's that bad to hammer those out of the way. It's conceivable to complete the Granary at size 1, actually.
You're right that the crab is a weak tile before the Lighthouse is done. The city has an instant 3 forests, however, and that's a big help to set it up quickly.
I think it's important to consider how those first cities can contribute to the settling of others and not just their long-term potential.
Some cities are not in an urgent need of a border pop and that's a big plus. Stone+Sheep, for example, is a nice one. We don't have many of those, actually, only 2
I don't see it but maybe
The Colossus going obsolete with Astronomy is a let down.