This time I got the Russians, with a river (and Spices) nearby and Wheat-Plains next to my spawn-point, but I had to move my Settler 2 tiles to plant Moscow on the river
without founding on the Wheat. Turned out that the river was really short (StPetes was founded CxxC away from Moscow, on the delta), and is the only one on my island (which I shared with the Vikings — until quite recently!). Those idle 2 turns (plus Restless Barb-attacks) essentially cost me the Republic-sling: I lost the race to Philo by 1T, to the Inca (sharing the big island next door with France), which really smarted.
On the biggest island on the map, Mao had several wars with Cleo, eventually kicking her out soon after he got Riders (although Joanie was the one who finally finished her off). During my first war with Ragnar, to take the 3 towns he'd founded on the eastern end of our island (SE of Moscow, but on the far side of my core from the rest of his territory to the SW), Mao also DoW'd me and dropped off early-Medieval troops near Moscow (completely unguarded, because all my forces were elsewhere), so I immediately conceded an adjacent, recently-founded but food-poor coastal core-town, to avoid the loss of my capital.
But later on, Mao used that beachead to back-stab me, bought in several allies (Pacha and Julius), and came about thiiiis —>||<— close to gutting my core, before I managed — with some help from the Vikings, ironically enough — to push him back into the sea (when it became clear that the Chinese posed the bigger threat to me, I'd signed a MAPT-deal with Ragnar). With my territory 100% back under my control (but still infested with Vikings, and mostly only lightly garrisoned), while researching towards MilTrad, I built up a large stack of Knights near the border, waited until all Ragnar's Knights and Zerks were back on his side of it, and then signed peace with Mao.
During the second Viking war, an eMace gave me an MGL, which I turned into an Army but left empty until I had Cossacks to put in it. I then used that Army (initially) to pillage Ragnar's Iron + Horses, allowing my Knights and a few more Cossack-upgrades to roll over most of his towns in fairly short order, gaining me another MGL. Trondheim fell about 10T back, Malmo (on the 1st island to the west) shortly after that, and a decent stack of troops are now stationed 2 islands away. But once again, the Inca beat me by 1T, administering the coup de grace to Ragnar on the IBT directly after my troops had got into position to attack his last town (Alesund).
Aggravatingly, I hadn't known that Pacha and Ragnar were fighting, and Alesund fell 2T
after I'd made peace with Pacha, so I couldn't immediately take it from him. I'd actually invaded that island to go after the Pop4 Incan town first (with Pop5 Alesund intended as my second target), but my simultaneous invasion of the Incan mainland had just gone sour. Although I'd taken 3 of Pacha's towns (razing 2 of them to create my own beachhead), my second Army had been badly injured, and I lost it, the sole Rifle I'd shipped over to defend my Cannons, and about half my Cossacks (who'd been sheltering under the Rifle to heal) to Incan Cav-attacks, so I'd felt compelled to make peace to obtain some breathing-room, while I re-arm.
Oh well, at least all the WW went away, too. For now...
It's now around 1400 AD, GA-fuelled research has got me into the Industrial (my freebie was Nationalism), plus SteamPower, railing has begun, and I am researching Electricity —> RepParts. Of the 5 remaining AI-Civs (France, Inca, Iroquois, Rome, China), only Julius is more backwards than I am: in terms of obligatory techs (I have none of the Medieval optionals), I'm roughly at parity with Joan, Pacha and Hiawatha are ahead, but (pretty sure) Mao is already Modern!

Even if he isn't
yet, he's definitely the runaway (he'd built ToE before I'd even got MilTrad!), so I'm probably going to have to foment some wars against him (or at least, ship Iron, Horses, and/or Saltpeter to his enemies), just to slow him down...