Turn 1. Don't count on me playing super early all the time.
Scouting revealed an amazing second city just where I want it:
Cows in the first ring, shares the corn with the capital, and lots of grassland to cottage. It's right by where my workers will be following the original sim plan, too! The only downside is that I'm forced to go for animal husbandry after BW. In ideal circumstances the cow would be a grain or a deer and I could go straight to mysticism (religion for border pop) or archery (depending on where copper is).
Then I remembered how you change your name, so there we go.
And then I figured out mousing over names gives traits. So here are the picks:
Greenline: HC of Mali
Obvious synergy pick that plans to rush Oracle like a total dumb newbie. It does give Skirms and Mints and good techs though, so there's that.
Jowy: Elizabeth of Egypt
Decent combo. I don't think FIN + PHI is anti synergistic as people think because you don't have to run a specialist economy to get the most use out of PHI. Most civs are gonna have to stunt a high food city running scientists for an early academy at some point and PHI lets you do that faster. And most civs build a NE city at some point, and PHI just gets more value out of it. My main problem with PHI is I don't like or understand lightbulbing and I think after the first scientist and/or prophet great people don't give that much value except for engineers.
Pairing Lizzie with Egypt is good because you can pop out prophets real easy. So Jowy's probably going for an early religion with this pick. Or he could just be trying to rush someone, which is where being Mali comes in handy. It's much easier to clear a War Chariot choke with Skirms then with archers.
Picklepickl: Darius of Germany
Also a decent choice assuming the starts are mirrored or close to mirrored. You get FIN/ORG and good start techs but give away any unique units or buildings until the game is over. Scary in the midgame but not as much early on.
Sian: Also HC of Mali
See above except done by someone who isn't a newb.
My goal is to keep an eye on who founds Hinduism first. If it's Sian then chopping Oracle might not be possible because he's beelining it faster. If it's Jowy then I'll have to speed Oracle plans up. If it's me then I hopefully have it in a lock