Ok, some initial thoughts:
1. We need civ with hunting. Not only will it allow us to hook up the deer, but open up Animal Husbandry for the sheep.
- unfortunately there is no chance we discover AH in time for our worker. The fastest we can discover AH (Hunting, Agriculture starting techs) is 11 turn. It would be so beautiful if it will land on 10 turn, but we are short 2 coins for that and there is no way we can take it
- Maybe there is still time to propose noble difficulty
- The starting sheep is very good, but unfortunately streches our discovery path a lot.
2. Awailable civs:
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Mining:[/SIZE]
Ethiopian - Oromo Warrior, Stele. Stele is shit, and Oromo close to it.
German - Panzer, Assembly Plant. Panzers are great, but the game will not last until modern era, so we will be left with blank civ.
Khmer - Balista Elephant, Baray. Balista Elephant is ok, but nothing spectacular, and there is a good chance we will not have an Ivory making it non existence. Baray is aqueduct with +1 food, but how often do you build aqueducts?
Russian - Cossack and Research Institute. Research Institute is probably the worst UB in the game and Cossack are quite late and there is good chance the game will not last until it.
All of the choices are pretty uninspiring.
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Wheel:[/SIZE]
Mongolian - Keshik, Ger. Much, much better here. Keshik is a horse archer and we will use it a lot. It has +1 first strike and ignores terrain movement costs. I would say it's quite a decent unit. Pair it with Ger (+4 exp to mounted) and we will have 7 exp starting Keshiks. If we choose Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic) we are 1 exp from a third promo.
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Agriculture:[/SIZE]
Persian - Immortal, Apothecary. Immortal is very good in single player games, because AI tends to use archers a lot, human players usualy don't, making it less appealing. But it's still quite a decent unit, mostly because it's a chariot that recive defensive bonuses with +50% vs archery on top of it. Apothecary is quite late and very weak UB.
Zulu - Impis, Ikhanda. Impis are IMO the best military units in the game. They are so versatile it's even hard to list all of the goodies. With them we will be quite safe against almost all rushes until Knights era. There is a good chance Egipt and Persia will be in play making Impis even better.
The only real danger to Impis are axes, but Impis with 2 moves and Mobility can outmanouver them at will, and if we pair them with Ragnar (Aggressive, Financial) even axes have no chance against Impis on defensive terrain.
Axe vs shock Impi on a forest or jungle - 33,12%
Axe vs shock Impi on a forested hill 23,87%
- Impis are the best defenders against most of everything until knights. Most of the aggression in MP come from 2-movers and Impis are good against all of them. They are so good, that other teams will probably choose easier targets, giving us some kind of insurance policy, allowing us to snowball our economic financial edge.
- early Impis can choke any civ at will, even axes will have hard times against it.
- If we pair Impis with chariots (in this game we must have AH and BW early) we will have two units that are complementary and are both 2-movers. There is no other such a kombo in the game. Imagine, what would you do if chariots and Impis come to your land. You can't send an axe, because chariot will eat it allive and even if not you will have no odds against Impi on difficult terrain. You can't send a spear, because shock Impi will defeat it with easy. Not to mention the only units that are remotly good against any of the two are 1-mover while Impis and Chariots are 2-movers, even better Impis have Mobility allowing it to pass forest and hills with just 1 move. It's ridiculous
- Impis with it's 2 moves and mobility can flank enemy territory and harrass their land with easy or even raze lightly defended back cities.
- They are great scouts, that can fear not of barbs.
On top of that Zulu have Ikhandas. It's barrack that gives -20% maintance. Early it will probably save you just 1 coin per turn. But 1 coin savings from a building that cost 30 hammers, which you probably build nontheless in some cities stockpile to a great number through of the game. And in case tha game will last longer we will have some economic edge.
To sum it up. Taking into account our start, and the fact that we need civ with hunting, we can have two choices that have real synergy in it, and the second is clearly better:
[SIZE="3"]- Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic) of Mongol
- Ragnar (Financial, Aggressive) of Zulu[/SIZE]
I would love to choose Huayna, but I am affraid, we will have not much time to leverage it's strong points in this game, taking into account our start and map's standard size and the fact that we all start on the same continent. IMO Ragnar of Zulu it's tha way to go. With aggressive trait in all of the mirror machups (ie. axe vs axe) you will have an advantage, meaning if someone want to attack us thay have to take much bigger force than against other civs, making us less than desirable target. If the map will be large or even huge there will be greater chance the game will last past the medieval era, and Huayna would be viable choice there, but unfortunately it's not the case here.
1. We need civ with hunting. Not only will it allow us to hook up the deer, but open up Animal Husbandry for the sheep.
- unfortunately there is no chance we discover AH in time for our worker. The fastest we can discover AH (Hunting, Agriculture starting techs) is 11 turn. It would be so beautiful if it will land on 10 turn, but we are short 2 coins for that and there is no way we can take it
- Maybe there is still time to propose noble difficulty
- The starting sheep is very good, but unfortunately streches our discovery path a lot.
2. Awailable civs:
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Mining:[/SIZE]
Ethiopian - Oromo Warrior, Stele. Stele is shit, and Oromo close to it.
German - Panzer, Assembly Plant. Panzers are great, but the game will not last until modern era, so we will be left with blank civ.
Khmer - Balista Elephant, Baray. Balista Elephant is ok, but nothing spectacular, and there is a good chance we will not have an Ivory making it non existence. Baray is aqueduct with +1 food, but how often do you build aqueducts?
Russian - Cossack and Research Institute. Research Institute is probably the worst UB in the game and Cossack are quite late and there is good chance the game will not last until it.
All of the choices are pretty uninspiring.
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Wheel:[/SIZE]
Mongolian - Keshik, Ger. Much, much better here. Keshik is a horse archer and we will use it a lot. It has +1 first strike and ignores terrain movement costs. I would say it's quite a decent unit. Pair it with Ger (+4 exp to mounted) and we will have 7 exp starting Keshiks. If we choose Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic) we are 1 exp from a third promo.
[SIZE="3"]Hunting, Agriculture:[/SIZE]
Persian - Immortal, Apothecary. Immortal is very good in single player games, because AI tends to use archers a lot, human players usualy don't, making it less appealing. But it's still quite a decent unit, mostly because it's a chariot that recive defensive bonuses with +50% vs archery on top of it. Apothecary is quite late and very weak UB.
Zulu - Impis, Ikhanda. Impis are IMO the best military units in the game. They are so versatile it's even hard to list all of the goodies. With them we will be quite safe against almost all rushes until Knights era. There is a good chance Egipt and Persia will be in play making Impis even better.
The only real danger to Impis are axes, but Impis with 2 moves and Mobility can outmanouver them at will, and if we pair them with Ragnar (Aggressive, Financial) even axes have no chance against Impis on defensive terrain.
Axe vs shock Impi on a forest or jungle - 33,12%
Axe vs shock Impi on a forested hill 23,87%
- Impis are the best defenders against most of everything until knights. Most of the aggression in MP come from 2-movers and Impis are good against all of them. They are so good, that other teams will probably choose easier targets, giving us some kind of insurance policy, allowing us to snowball our economic financial edge.
- early Impis can choke any civ at will, even axes will have hard times against it.
- If we pair Impis with chariots (in this game we must have AH and BW early) we will have two units that are complementary and are both 2-movers. There is no other such a kombo in the game. Imagine, what would you do if chariots and Impis come to your land. You can't send an axe, because chariot will eat it allive and even if not you will have no odds against Impi on difficult terrain. You can't send a spear, because shock Impi will defeat it with easy. Not to mention the only units that are remotly good against any of the two are 1-mover while Impis and Chariots are 2-movers, even better Impis have Mobility allowing it to pass forest and hills with just 1 move. It's ridiculous
- Impis with it's 2 moves and mobility can flank enemy territory and harrass their land with easy or even raze lightly defended back cities.
- They are great scouts, that can fear not of barbs.
On top of that Zulu have Ikhandas. It's barrack that gives -20% maintance. Early it will probably save you just 1 coin per turn. But 1 coin savings from a building that cost 30 hammers, which you probably build nontheless in some cities stockpile to a great number through of the game. And in case tha game will last longer we will have some economic edge.
To sum it up. Taking into account our start, and the fact that we need civ with hunting, we can have two choices that have real synergy in it, and the second is clearly better:
[SIZE="3"]- Hannibal (Financial, Charismatic) of Mongol
- Ragnar (Financial, Aggressive) of Zulu[/SIZE]
I would love to choose Huayna, but I am affraid, we will have not much time to leverage it's strong points in this game, taking into account our start and map's standard size and the fact that we all start on the same continent. IMO Ragnar of Zulu it's tha way to go. With aggressive trait in all of the mirror machups (ie. axe vs axe) you will have an advantage, meaning if someone want to attack us thay have to take much bigger force than against other civs, making us less than desirable target. If the map will be large or even huge there will be greater chance the game will last past the medieval era, and Huayna would be viable choice there, but unfortunately it's not the case here.
I'm not such a fan of Skirmishers, especially when the map is balanced so that we're likely to have good access to resources. But since Hunting is a given with a Deer start, going for Archery isn't so much of a detour as usual. Seems worth considering, anyway. 
With agri we can always farm our floodplains. Not sure it's the best use of it but it's for sure better than building roads.