I'll dropbox a save file below, but I have improvements on everything above spiders (ie. drath, dragons, those weird spider-like things)  but the only thing I'm able to recruit is a spider.  Hopefully it's fixed in 1.05, but I didn't see mention of it in the changelog....and maybe it's just me.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10467994/Awesome%20start.EleSav

I got a good start by ignoring my crappy starting location and going and taking another sovereigns starter right after he made it.  He hadn't had a chance to put anything inside it so I just walked in.  Three turns later his empire ended when he died off screen.    I also got to use my sovereign to create another starting city as she hadn't created one yet.