Looks like we had a small glitch on the settings. Stuff like this happens. Shouldn't happen but does happen. All the players started on the biggest continent meaning that roughly 50% of the land is unpopulated. Knowing this means that there is less importance in placing the capital city on an optimal position. That's why two cities were build during the first turn.
The obvious research target is Map Making but going for monarchy first might make sense. A single longboat is able to move settlers unit through the deep ocean and the shallow ocean capable triremes will be able to explore the small islands they can reach. That's how exploration can be done before magnetism. Magnetism of course unlocks the serious stuff. Ships able to transport military units and multiple settlers.
So, why monarchy first? There is a small issue before going to Map Making and the early ships. That's dealing with the penalty we get from despotism or tribal. Despotism and tribal both have -1 penalty for all tiles producing more than two. That's why it usually doesn't make sense to irrigate grassland. Irrigated grassland gives 3 food and with -1 penalty that turns back to 2 and that's the original without irrigation. The alternative is making the pyramids since those will also remove the -1 penalty while also giving +1 production to each tile producing shields. The production bonus only applies to the city pyramids are located in.
Irrigating specials like wheat or oasis makes sense since those give 3 food without irrigation and 4 when irrigated. Irrigated wheat or oasis giving 3 food under despotism or tribal is really nice. If you are really lucky you can build on one and get the irrigation bonus without irrigation. Add an irrigated special giving 3 food and your city will grow in 3 turns from 1 to 2. East Germany wasn't this lucky with specials. At least not at safe enough locations. Building on oasis (or wheat) doesn't give any additional defense bonus. That's why East Germany will race for building a city on coal instead of oasis.
Here on this pick you can see a nation from south moving explorer and a settler towards the area where East Germany has units. For such situations there is the option to set a go and build a city goto to a tile. On this pic the settler on the right side has a goto order to move to the hill with coal (moved) and build a city on it. Because the order was given more than 10 hours before the turn change (tc) the build part will be executed at the beginning of the next turn. This is assuming that the other player doesn't have a conflicting goto order that would be executed first. The gotos happen in random order.
Wonder why the workers are working while some of them must be out of
moves if you compare the last picture to the previous one? That's
because workers may gain promotions even if working out of moves.
Promoted workers work faster and have more moves.
