Welcome to the Ancient Era!

Hello there. So now that my game has official begun and my strategies are in place, I am ready to take on the ancient era and all it's obstacles. First starting off, I chose the easiest condition of the game: "Earth" however, decided to challenge myself just a bit by becoming a Chiefdom to start. That way, I wasn't allowing myself to participate in a game that was too easy. I decided to become an Indian civilization as there were many aspects I believed would be beneficial to my strategies... which were still being refined. Asoka's civilization was spiritual and organized, which would be advantageous towards religion and intellect, their starting technology was mining which could be traded, used, and overall, was a great resource, and the unique unit associated with Asoka was the fast worker. This allowed me to construct improvments, buildings, roads, and trade routes faster than everyone else. Consequently, this increased my growth rate of my civilization.
Starting off, my first city generated a warrior that allowed me to explore and protect while I was starting off. I needed a way to protect my city from the beginning as I was surrounded from every angel by other civilizations so having that warrior was a major advantage. The location I chose was near animals that could be domesticated, rivers, and plains, allowing my city to prosper. Once settled, I created a fast worker to take advantage of the great resources. Using the knowledge from Guns, Germs, and Steel, agriculture and animal husbandry were my first priority for research. This would allow me to domestic the animals that I had settled near and get full use of the plains surrounding my city. While the fast workers were working and the warriors were exploring, I game accross a small village. This escalated my progress as they gave me a fast worker. My first decision was to build a farm and a granary, so as my people would not starve. This would also ensure that as my food surplus grew, I would be able to specialize and grow.
The first foreign civilization I ran into was Persia. They were immediately East of my city. They showed no signs of aggression and I knew that from the resources in their land, trade would become a necessity between the two of us, so I opted for peace. (Later, this was the best decision as it has allowed my civilization, and theirs, to prosper well past the others). After agriculture and animals husbandy were both researched, I decided to discover hunting. This would be beneficial as there were mountainous regions that hunting would be useful. This also led me to research fishing, as I was near the Meditterranean Sea and two oceans.
As the city was growing, my need for warriors became evident as the barbarian animals were quickly invading my territory. By this time, I already had four people living in my city and felt the need to build another one as this one was becoming too crowded (a complaint I would continue to hear). To find new and beneficial areas, I created a scout to help explore. After hunting and fishing were researched, I chose sailing to make use of the open waters. The granary needed to establish my food surplus came after I researched pottery. My people were happy with that decision.
The second foreign civilization that I ran into was the Chinese Empire. They came accross as wary but not aggressive so I opted for peace. Trade with them would also be beneficial to my civilizations. The lessons learned from Guns, Germs, and Steel were becoming more evident throughout this game as my civilization began accelerating in developement. The locations in which my civilizations were located were playing a major role in the growth rate of my civilization and the overall satisfaction of my people. As I was continually making improvements and expanding my city, the health of the poeple started to deteriorate. Two causes were behind this: overcrowding and the surrounding forests. From this, I decided to research iron working as I would then be able to chop the forest down (at least in areas I needed to) in order to increase the health of my cities.