You’re absolutely right...identifying the map’s strengths and weaknesses will indeed come with more games. Of course, some maps / city sites are more obvious than others...I mean, if you manage to find a city site with 4 gold mines (as I did in one game many months back), then chances are that it’ll be a commerce city!
Other times it’s admittedly not so easy, particularly when you consider the vast array of improvements you can build. As a result, I tend to agree with alot of the advice regarding cities on this forum: at this level, you really only need to plan for your Oxford, Heroic Epic and GP farm (and / or draft centre, depending on your playstyle) city sites. Many of the others can be hybrids if needed. The golden rule is really to just try and make sure your city site has at least one food resource available to feed it – although even this is not always possible. If in doubt, you can always post a screenshot when you’ve scouted out your land and put in place a proposed dotmap (which I understand that BUG will help with). I’m sure folks on here will happily advise you of better city locations if they can see them.
If you’re having trouble with city specialisation meanwhile, I can heartily recommend reading either of the two guides below, which are the best I’ve found.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252717
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=306619&highlight=city+specialization
That said, the fact that you identified Aksum as a prime production site (which is completely correct IMHO) suggests to me that you’re actually doing fine in this area.
On the subject of the pyramids, I completely agree that you don’t want to rely exclusively on “one strategy” and become a “one trick pony”. As you’ve already worked out, civ is too complex a game for one approach to work all the time. The point I’m making though is that building the pyramids represents just one of many ways of overcoming the main obstacle with this map – the lack of happiness resources. The key is really more about identifying the particular “something” that the map lacks (or perhaps has in abundance) and then playing the map or teching or building in a way that allows your civ to keep growing. “Growth is good” is the point I’m really trying to make.
Talking of maxims, your mantra about workers is also a very good one - in the early stages especially. Just remember to check the military advisor (F5) every so often to check you have around 1.5 workers per city, or around 2 per city if in the jungle. If not, or if you find yourself working unimproved tiles, then consider inserting a worker in the build queue ASAP. In future games, remember too that building workers and / or settlers is also a very handy way of stopping city growth (rather than using scientists) whilst, for example, you’re waiting for whip weariness to fade or want to stay under a happy cap.
Hope this helps.
