Here's how I found this out:
I started a hill country game against one computer opponent and with one computer ally. As soon as the game started I made a house, created 3 new villagers, and moved them all over to my ally's camp to serve as 'watchers'. I used the Macedonian civ because it gave my villagers increased line of sight to watch with. I stationed one 'watcher' by my ally's town center, one by his wood pit, one by his berries, and the rest I just scattered around his camp so that I could see anything and everything that moved.
About 5 minutes into the game my ally tooled but it did so without collecting any food!!! It was a resources=default game and yet it did not need to pick berries or hunt at all to get to the tool age. In the stone age, it made a few villagers and all of it's guys just sat around and chopped wood and built buildings. Meanwhile, we humans have to be foraging and hunting like crazy to compete.
I have more computer-opponent beefs too like how they seem to always know where your camp is without scouting by that's another story.
Anyhooo, does anybody have any explanation for this tricky free-food play?
Axeman Jim