Huge thanks Harry for the dot-mapping work. I'm still very much undecided on how the expansion should go after we have planted 5 cities. I guess those southern food resources as well as the river valley in the east will be contested. It will be difficult to get them and we would need to be fast, but I'm not a fan of settling early far away cities with high maintenance costs when they cannot be really supported etc... But of course we want them.. 
Let's keep thinking.. I promise to express my opinion, when I have made up my mind.. I think the site 6 that you suggested (cottage site) is in our position decent enough. IW and Calendar are really needed
Re: taking contact with mostly harmless: I think we might as well. Maybe it will give us some known-tech beakers later and to him it should look as if we are coming from the east so our contact does not necessirarily mean that he will start expanding faster towards us or something similar..
About research: I tested and we can squeeze in AH before maths and we will still able to organize our chops in an efficient way. So should we change the tech? Of course it will delay every other tech as well, but seeing horses is kind of important and my feeling is that our own land won't be good enough for winning this game and I guess we might end up performing/trying somekind of combination of coastal naval attack and knight rush in the mid-game..
Let's keep thinking.. I promise to express my opinion, when I have made up my mind.. I think the site 6 that you suggested (cottage site) is in our position decent enough. IW and Calendar are really needed
Re: taking contact with mostly harmless: I think we might as well. Maybe it will give us some known-tech beakers later and to him it should look as if we are coming from the east so our contact does not necessirarily mean that he will start expanding faster towards us or something similar..
About research: I tested and we can squeeze in AH before maths and we will still able to organize our chops in an efficient way. So should we change the tech? Of course it will delay every other tech as well, but seeing horses is kind of important and my feeling is that our own land won't be good enough for winning this game and I guess we might end up performing/trying somekind of combination of coastal naval attack and knight rush in the mid-game..