I'm the same way, can't figure how players get early completion dates and learn to be competitive at the higher levels. Maybe it is a life-time commitment.
No, it's not. But if you have limited time, you must be a fast learner! Try to finish one game per month, either PTW or C3C (since they are fairly different in the details, and it's the details you must study), submit the game and write spoilers describing how you reasoned when you played and what game mechanics you used or wanted to use. Then ask us to comment, and you'll get much useful information.
Also read good spoilers. You could look in old game threads for those that SirPleb wrote. There you can learn a lot.
If the squares to w-sw and sw-s are flood plains, let me move the worker 1N to see what's up there and then decide where to settle.
Now, why would you want to do something like that?
You must know for sure, that the first thing the Worker should do is
not to improve a Plains tile. So what do you expect to find up north, away from the River? Possibly a Cattle bonus, since this is after all a civ_steve game. But you must be aware, that that is a gamble. If you find nothing, you have lost three Worker moves.
By moving the Worker SW onto a known FP, you lose only the potential of scouting elsewhere, but get knowledge of the other two FPs -- namely
if they have a bonus and then
what kind. Only if one of the FPs have a bonus (e.g. Wheat or Incense) should you consider to move away from the starting position before settling, and that move is then towards the bonus in order to get it within city limits already during the first ten turns, before the first culture expansion happens in the capital. If they are plain FPs, then you can still settle in place surrounded by yummy FPs, and you Worker is ready to irrigate the first one.
. I will still be playing predator regardless...
