My capital was on a river, yes..
and the surrounding land was terrible.. I have never seen a continent with more jungle on than the one I started on..
Those three cities were the only nonjungle cities I built before I crushed the iroqeus (sp?) who had only got space for building 2 cities on nonjungle land, using an immortal rushwhich afterwards got turned to the french, who would have been a powerhouse, since they were about the only civ on the whole continent with space for more than a few cities outside jungle.. Not that it helped a lot against immortals, since they didn't build many horsemen despite having the tech for like forever..
Before I ended the initiary war I also crushed the aztecs, who had gotten 3 quite bad city sites, and no space for expansion due to the french..