I have enjoyed my first play trough and enjoyed the game a lot, it is just frustrating for me to get out of the neolithic era. I liked this era in the dev. build but this was a premade map and felt shorter but better. I have restarted so many times that it let me stop playing before I build my first city. I would like to know other peoples experience here.

I like the idea of a nomadic start a lot but it is incredibly random (no skill needed) and feels unfair:

2: World generation is random: you can start on a location without a curriosity, food or sceince. You can start on a location not suitable for a city at all (not even after exploring).

3: A random event just kills off your second gatherer due to illness? Just is a immediate restart for me.

4: The AI is faster, even if you are lucky (multiple food curriousities in a turn)

5: The AI always picks the same civs in this order (Harrapans, Myceneans, Olmec, Nubians).. I've never been able to choose the Harrapans on medium.

btw: I do split gatherers, build settlements and ransac caves.

In a game that will take that much time, it just feels bad to have a disappointing start due to randomness. Other 4x games have randomness at the start but you see it immediatly and it feels less unfair.

Another thing I noticed is the influence of civs to neutral settlements.

A civ that is geared towards treating with neutral settlement already has influence with them although they did not even meet them.

#5 seems spot on. I'm on my third game (and maybe about 6 starts) and I have NEVER been able to get Harappans, despite being usually 2nd-4th.

I wish the AI personality changed what they went for. I avoid "stubborn" AI - the one who never changes cultures - but it seems like there's always at least 1 who stays the same.

I think at least one "food" or "science/culture" should always spawn within range of the first turn. I had a game were I didn't see ANYTHING before turn 3...

Agreed. It's not as bad as Civ 6, but I've still had to restart numerous times for each game, often playing the 10-15 turns before exploring enough to realize my area of the map is a worthless desert/icy-wasteland.

So far my experiences match this. Always 3 other civs advance before me, always the same 3 cultures are chosen.

So I have had lots of restarts.

On the other hand, I really like the Neolithic Era... 

I enjoy the randomness of the Neolithic era. It sounds like you already have a good strategy. I'll add one thing, once you have warband of 3 you can start harassing AI tribes and, if you're lucky, set them back considerably. To the point where, as soon as they transition to the Ancient era, they're so weak in units and territory you can eliminate them right away.

I'll also add, food and curiosities spawn in territory you've already explored. So it's worth sending a single tribe member back the way you came.

In the current build, the AI always gets first pick of two or more cultures because the AI units are programmed to go directly to the bonus discoveries on auto-explore. There is no fog of war, and they respond immediately to one that pops up nearby with 100% efficiency. So the AI factions will usually reach the next era first, unless you set your units to auto-explore as well. 

I would prefer to spend a little more time manually exploring in the Neolithic. Auto-explore takes decision-making out of the game, but if I want a particular starting culture it's the only way for now. Set your units to auto-explore.

There is the alternative of staying in the Neolithic era longer, building up points, and that can be viable if you're not very particular about which culture you begin with. I sometimes use a hybrid approach with auto-explore and then stopping it if I want to hunt an animal, or split up armies where some units are auto-exploring and others are on manual. The AI always gets ahead but not quite as far as if I manually move all my units.

The fact that the AI always picks the *same* cultures if it gets there first is a separate issue. I hope Amplitude can adjust that with balancing cultures so the AI doesn't find Harrappans the best, then the Myceneans, and so on. 

As for the randomized world generation, that's the reason I prefer this type of 4X game to historical-based ones with fixed maps. I like not knowing in advance what the world will look like. I'm also an inveterate re-starter if the beginning isn't looking good after a dozen or so turns in games like Civ, EL, ES2 or Stellaris, so I'm used to re-rolling. I prefer that to having a perfect start every time, which you can't really expect with randomized world generation unless the player gets some bonus the AI isn't getting.