On your dotmap I think both pigs-wine and floodplains desert city (east of cap) could be moved 1W. Wine is not a priority and not destroying a forest would be better. Settling of floodplains destroys the extra food but reduces unhealthiness. More importantly it can also share gold with horse city which might be good when you want the former to grow faster.
That said, after the food resources the best spot for settling seems to be northwest of cap with those rivers (e.g. 3 tiles NW). Unless the southern section where you have dots also has riverside grass, cannot see well at the bottom.
So, here's my thinking on the the position of the two dots you mentioned:
Moving the pig/wine city 1W would move it 1 tile away from the coast. I'd like to know how to calculate the cost of that vs the benefit of getting access to the gold (which is already accessible by another city).
Moving the other city (4E, 1N of capital) onto the FP means that it will only ever have access to a single FP as its only food source. Since this city is not a high priority, long term viability would seem to be more important than.... actually, I don't know exactly what would be gained by moving that one.
Also, here's a better view of the land to the south. Some nice river grassland, but also a lot of jungle, so again, not a super high priority.
It appears you may have lost your scout possibly. I'm a little confused as to why your first warrior is basically moving toward already scouted land when you still have a plethora of fog to uncover near Pers to the W. You coulda at least started him westward a bit and then moved N->NE back to spawn-bust for the settler. These little decisions can sometimes be very important. I'd not be overly concerned with city spots after horse/gold until you do more scouting. You might be focusing on a 2 city immortal rush of Rome here.
Yep. Lost my scout in a forest to a panther (80% chance to survive - the RNG hates me). As for the warrior's position, you're right. I got a little tunnel-visioned about fog-busting for the settler. I didn't really think I'd have the time to scout before doing that. I just finished another warrior in my capital, so I'm sending him west to reveal some of that land.
Rome looks a bit blocked for a sneak attack from the NW....maybe you can pounce from the SE if it is open - I'm talking first-turn attack to take the city. I can't see enough to tell here. Anyway, on this level, I don't think you need much to start - maybe 6 imms could take Rome if you can hit quickly. Keep an eye out for when he sends out settlers. (I just don't know what the rough timings are on this level)
If I'm not mistaken, a sneak attack like the one you describe would have to happen before his borders pop again. If I can manage to get a sufficient army up and in position before then, I'd be very impressed. I've never managed it before. As for his settlers, is it worth waiting until his second city is at size 2, so I can take both?
(sidenote: Other than no huts/events I don't really like your settings. They are not doing you any favors)
So, this next bit may sound a bit defensive. I don't mean it to be. Mostly I'm frustrated at myself for still being so incompetent at this game. If you can see any flaws in my justifications, or advice on how to overcome things, I'd be grateful...
I'm not really impressed with these settings either, but I find the game almost unplayable without them. They are designed to compensate for known deficiencies in my abilities. On lower difficulties I had a mostly isolationist play style where I did my own thing until I was strong enough to waltz all over the AI. Obviously, that doesn't work anymore.
I was losing way too many games to AP/UN shenanigans, and it was making the whole game seriously not fun for me, so I turned Dip victories off.
I often struggle to keep up in tech, and when I have any kind of parity, the AI never wants to trade anything with me anyway. Turning brokering off was an attempt to stop them trading too freely amongst themselves and making my situation even worse while still giving me an opportunity to trade for some things when they let me.
Ferrying troops to other continents for exploring and/or conquest is a whole headache that I just don't want to deal with until I'm better at other parts of the game. Hence pangea.
I have no idea why I set the sea level to low. I think I tried it once when I was messing around with other map types and just never bothered to put it back.