Just want to say I enjoyed skimming through this thread and all the detailed comments on both yours and our games, mine especially as we were neighbors and keeping eyes on each other the whole game. I also enjoyed looking at the many mistakes you called out on my end that I'm now kicking myself over. It really shows the difference in experience and knowledge of the game that you completely predicted my over-reliance on Rep specialists the moment I finished Pyramids 
Also it's pretty obvious how little I know about playing on water maps that I didn't value Astronomy anywhere near as much as I should have.
It seems like everyone had pretty significant frustrations over the nature of the map. Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like I still would have preferred being in your position, with lots of land but not a whole lot of happiness, as opposed to not having a lot of space to work with at all, but, admittedly, better use of whipping to get settlers out sooner could have alleviated a lot of my troubles related to that. Just getting more island cities quicker to just grow into coastal commerce forever would have been worth the trouble I imagine.
Also it's pretty obvious how little I know about playing on water maps that I didn't value Astronomy anywhere near as much as I should have.It seems like everyone had pretty significant frustrations over the nature of the map. Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like I still would have preferred being in your position, with lots of land but not a whole lot of happiness, as opposed to not having a lot of space to work with at all, but, admittedly, better use of whipping to get settlers out sooner could have alleviated a lot of my troubles related to that. Just getting more island cities quicker to just grow into coastal commerce forever would have been worth the trouble I imagine.