I would suggest allowing to build scouts for the first X turns (25?)
Agree with normal speed, pangaea, emperor
For the civ choice, my preferences would be the following
* Celts - the best civ for faith production
* Greece - the best civ for maintaining relations with city states
* Byzantium - considering we will have to take beliefs which allow to purchase units with faith, being able to take an extra non-military belief will be useful
The following can also be considered, but are probably against the spirit of the variant
* Austria - when buying a city state, the player gets all its military
* Germany - after getting the first few units from a city stsate, we can try getting the barbs to our side
* Ottomans - same, but with navy (probably the worst option as it will take a while to get naval units and be able to fight barbs with them)
Agree with normal speed, pangaea, emperor
For the civ choice, my preferences would be the following
* Celts - the best civ for faith production
* Greece - the best civ for maintaining relations with city states
* Byzantium - considering we will have to take beliefs which allow to purchase units with faith, being able to take an extra non-military belief will be useful
The following can also be considered, but are probably against the spirit of the variant
* Austria - when buying a city state, the player gets all its military
* Germany - after getting the first few units from a city stsate, we can try getting the barbs to our side
* Ottomans - same, but with navy (probably the worst option as it will take a while to get naval units and be able to fight barbs with them)