So, it's not technically Halloween yet, where I live. Pretend I'm in Germany. It's the 31st somewhere!

Roll the dice. No Raging Barbs as that’s a custom choice and I did a quick start. Oh well. One less issue to deal with. We’re America, so we have the Navy SEAL as our UU. We start with fishing and agriculture, so we have some good worker actions already. We’re the FDR version of the Americans, so we are Industrious (+50% Wonder build rate and half-price forges) and Organized (less city maintenance costs and half-price lighthouses).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16-4000bc.JPG

(0) 4000 - OK, I hate this choice. Moving the warrior is easy. We have Clams just off the coast. But we couldn’t take advantage of them with our city where it’s started. Getting both the cows and the clams is possible, but not on the coast. [NOTE: What was I thinking when I wrote this? One north of where we started would have been ideal. OY!] Lots of fresh water around, but…. I wish I had a bit more experience.

The suggestion is to settle in place…which probably means we’d get some extra resources by settling in place. But we’d waste a flood plain. I don’t know WHAT to do. I like the food of flood plains, both for faster growth here earlier and to potentially support specialists later. I eventually move SE to the plains and then re-evaluate. Not a terrible choice -- reveals some horses nearby, a lot more flood plains, gold, and probably some wasted tiles to the NE. <Shrug> I’ll settle the plains, though. We’re gonna have to make sure we don’t overgrow our happiness, though, with Washington, though our health will be bad very soon.

There’s actually a TON of gold in the area, but we’re not well positioned to take advantage. Hmmmpph. I order up a warrior.

Animal Husbandry, with cows and horses nearby, is the natural first research choice. We’re going to do something a bit different, eschew religion for a while, and work on developing a strong, powerful civ based on population and cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16-hut.JPG

(5) 3800 - What hut did we pop? Anyway, we get mining. We’re going to have some sophisticated workers very early.

(10) 3600 - Just exploring. Small stretch of land to the NW ends early. I seem to explore the wrong way consistently. Washington is size 2 and VERY unhealthy -- we’re at our limit already. Darn flood plain disease. We’ll hit size 3 about the time the warrior pops and then I’ll do a worker. There’s plenty he can do.

(11) 3560 - Animal Husbandry comes in. And the exploring warrior just found Stone, so I take it as a sign we need to be able to quarry stone and order up Masonry next. What do I know?

(13) 3480 - Warrior finally completes. He’s gonna be in Washington for a bit, but then the old explorer will take over and he’ll go east, as I think I’ve found everything to our west.

(14) 3440 - Put one turn into warrior but switch to worker. We’re unhealthy already, but we can crank out a worker fairly quickly, actually. Then it’ll probably be a settler.

(15) 3400 - Buddhism founded somewhere. We’re … ummm … NOT going the religion route in this opening game. Workers. And settlers once I can get to them.

(19) 3240 - Masonry in. Wheel started. We’ll need the roads to help with health from the cows.

(21) 3160 - Enter a village. Get a warrior. I’m actually extremely happy about that. We’re shield/unit poor at this point. I’ll use him as another explorer briefly, but he might be best used as a guard for our second city.

Ruh-roh!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16-3120-lions.JPG

(24) 3040 - Let’s hear it for the defensive bonus of forests! (Higher than hills this game -- be warned!) Our warrior in a forest defends against the attacking lions. Barely, but we survived. He’ll heal. We look stuck on a small island here. This is looking very tough.

(25) 3000 - Wheel and worker come in. Sailing started, as it looks like we’ll need boats sooner rather than later. And the worker is going to go to the cow instead of the closer horse, as it gives more food/shield benefit, which is what we need for more workers/settlers to fill our small island. Not to mention the health bonus, which is like another extra food, since Washington is already unhealthy.

And I screw up and leave the queued warrior from before for a turn before going to the settler we so desperately need. Only one turn, but….

(30) 2800 - Well, I was able to confirm we are on a relatively small island all by ourselves. Just us and the barbs/animals. If we settle reasonably quickly, we might not need too many military units. My fog of war is VERY DARK, so it’s hard for me to plan much in terms of cities, but we have room for enough for a reasonable start.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16-dotmap.JPG

So, founding order doesn’t matter and I’m not the happiest with the dotmap. It’s a little tighter than I’ve been building before, but I want to not waste squares. And we ARE Organized (10 cities is actually quite a few). If exploration after Sailing shows us good stuff, we can modify. Note: Yellow dot is the NW-most tip of land and might not show clearly. I tried to put up signs, but I don’t know how to do that in Civ4. It’s said to be possible, but…. Any help on that would be appreciated.

In the meantime, I think our worker should road the cows to Washington, then pasture the horses, and then maybe irrigate some floodplains (others will need cottages). I would keep Washington on settlers/workers at size 3 until we get another health resource (clams, rice, fish, sheep) on board to help it grow. Yes, an irrigated flood plains WILL produce enough food for an unhealthy citizen and to grow, but it can take a while. I might be wrong, but that’d be my general approach. City #2, wherever it ends up, should do a bit of military and some exploring ships. Let Washington produce the settlers/workers for now, I think.

Research-wise, I think Writing is a high priority, as that opens up Libraries, which are our only/best source of culture at the moment.

Roster:
Arathorn -- just played
Speaker -- UP NOW -- 20 turns
Arizona_Steve -- on deck -- 10 turns
Reagan
Jaffa Tamarin

And we’ll all play 10 after Speaker, for all time.

Arathorn

Got it. Will play after work this afternoon/early evening.

I put together another dotmap that hopefully make better use of the terrain. The key to my map is city specialization. I'm not saying that my map is better than Arathorn's, or that his map is bad, as it definitely makes use of all (or as many as possible) of our tiles. But hey, let's try out city specialization, which the game developers were going for! Our main problem on this island is that, with the exception of Washington, we are food poor. None of the proposed coastal cities will grow very far for a while. I'd like to have one more powerhouse city to join Washington. Another city that can be the center for industry and production. A good ol' northern city. So this is what my dotmap for the southeastern part of our "continent" looks like:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Dotmap1.jpg

Blue dot in the center is our powerhouse. NOt only that, but it will easily hook up rice to help out with health. Blue dot could supply much of our military, or can be (nearly) strictly for wonder-building, leaving military production to...

Black dot will have decent production with the two hills and the grassland forests. How good it is will depend on how many of Blue dot's tiles we let it have.

Red dot will supply a good deal of our commerce. It will get three gold tiles for (aptly-named) gold and production. Two floodplains for growth. And a whole lot of coastal tiles for gold and enough food to grow (with a lighthouse). This dot could actually be moved to Red Dot 2, the smaller dot, to avoid losing some of the gold bonus by settling on it. But is that too close to Washington?

Purple dot will also have some production potential, with two hills and a grassland forest. I see it as production/commerce mix, since it has a lot of coast too.

White dot and Orange dot are mostly fishing villages. creating both may not be worth our while.

Well anyways, that's my reasoning for the dotmap.

2800BC (IT): Workers road the cows, warriors start to move in a way to cover as much of the island as possible. You know, I would really like to be at least one size bigger. An irrigated flood plain produces 4 food, which is a net gain after health is accounted for. But we do need another settler ASAP, so I will finish this one, and then do my best to improve our size (while keeping health manageable) for the rest of the turn.

2680BC (3): Road completes, move to flood plain and build road (to connect horses to Washington). I love these 2-move workers. They take away much of the tedium. Lions appear next to my southern warrior. But he's in the forest, so no worries.

IT- He in fact defeats the lion with nary a scratch.

2560BC (6): Sailing completes. Start writing. We'll need libraries to satisfactarily keep up in technology without any trading. Cow connects and Washington is healthy again. The next city will pull in a heath resource to help me grow Washington heathily.

IT- Hinduish founded in a foreign land.

2520BC (7): Workers start building a pasture for the horses.

2400BC (10): Settler finishes, queue up a chariot until we grow, with an emphasis on growth (all three-food tiles). I considered another worker because we'll need to get the second city up to speed as quickly as possible, but I think I can irrigate 1 flood plains tile and get a road to the sheep quickly enough that we won't be in worse shape than we were healthwise when my turn started. Did I mention I hate flood plains starts? Err I mean, more strategic options...interestingly enough, irrigating a flood plain is the same as hooking up a health resource. Also, I start a chariot, which will deal with any barbs that pop up on this island.

2360BC (11): Pasture completes. No burning need to road the horses, as they are already connected (is this because it's on the river?). However I think the most efficient roadway will look like this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Road.jpg

It will connect black dot as well, and leave us one road short of connecting red dot.

2320BC (12): Lions pop up next to the settler, but I have a warrior in the area and I'll be alright. Don't send your settlers out unaccompanied kids. It's a scary world!

IT- Warrior defends successfully against the Lion and promotes, losing 0.5 strength. I love the new combat system by the by. I give him 10% strength. Normally I'd go for the Woodsman upgrade, with the goal of getting another upgrade to Woodsman II, but we won't be doing any more exploring on land in this game. So I take the 10% upgrade.

2280BC (13): Found New York on blue dot, and start work on a barracks. Lions are right next to the city (which is now defended by a warrior). In retrospect, I should have started the farm before the road, as Washington will grow and suffer a few turns of unhealthiness while the farm completes. Next time...

2240BC (15): Protect the worker, roading to New York, with a warrior.
2200BC (16): Washington grows, and is now unhealthy again. The Chariot will be finished next turn.
2160BC (17): Chariot finishes, start settler, due in 9.
2080BC (19): Writing finishes. Start work on Pottery, to allow us to build a granary in Washington.
2040BC (20): Another barb pops up (I had had the Chariot on the other side of NY), but he shouldn't pose a problem for the Chariot next turn.

Conclusion- Washington's borders will expand next turn and will hopefully pull in the sheep for New York. If not, perhaps a library in New York?

LotR16 - 2040BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_BC-2040.zip)

I have it and will play tomorrow evening...

City specialization? Huh? I am already confused.

I guess I should, like, read the manual, or something :)

I guess I should, like, read the manual, or something :)

Perish the thought. :)

http://sirian.warpcore.org/smilies/sheep.gif

It's good to be back. Like most of us, I have little experience with this game, having spent no more than 6 hours on my solo efforts so far. I'm sure the beta testers are watching this, so here's my turns for their amusement...

(0) Inherited Turn
Our chariot successfully defends against a barbarian warrior attack, but is dropped to 3.0/4.

(1) 2000BC
Chariot heals in forest. Check the city screen for Washington, but see no way to speed up the settler.

IT:
We are fifth in the list of most advanced civilizations. LotR16 the puny (!). Barbarians are sighted from New York, but it'll be a few turns before they are an issue.

(2) 1960BC
Worker continues to road towards New York.

IT:
Barbarian disappears into the fog.

(3) 1920BC
Nada.

IT:
Forest grows by Washington. Chariot has healed.

(4) 1880BC
I send the chariot towards the position where the barbarian warrior was sighted.

IT:
Nada

(5) 1840BC
Another section of road completed, so the worker is moved to the hill for the next section. Warrior follows.

IT:
Some excitement at last. Pottery comes in, and the settler build in Washington is completed.

(6) 1800BC
Washington is set to build a warrior. The existing warrior there moves out to escort the settler to black dot.
Our chariot finds the barbarians, ending it's turn on an adjacent hill for extra defence.
Select Alphabet as our next research target. Black dot will start a galley once settled, and I think the opportunity to trade technology would be an advantage if we can find someone else.

IT:
Our chariot defends successully against the barbarian warrior.
Warrior completes at Washington.

(7) 1760BC
Our chariot has earned a promotion, so I give him +10% strength (other choice was +10% withdrawal chance). He is instructed to heal.
Warrior fortifies at Washington. A second worker is ordered up there.

IT:
Nada

(8) 1720BC
Steveville is founded on black dot, thus becoming the first city in a Civ 4 succession game to be named after a player. It starts work on a galley. Might as well see if anyone else is within striking distance.
Chariot heals, and is moved around to patrol the lands to the East.

IT:
Steveville is connected to Washington by a road.

(9) 1680BC
Worker and warrior moved to begin final road segment to connect New York to the other two cities.
Warrior fortifies in Steveville.

IT:
Nada

(10) 1640BC
Move chariot. Fortify warrior on worker.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Lotr-16-1640BC.jpg

LotR16 Save File - 1640BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_BC-1640.zip)

I jumped right in and played my ten. I'm a poet and didn't know it. I'm still very low on a steep learning curve for this new game, so feel free to comment on anything I did/should have done. My uneventful turns:

(0) 1640 – hit <enter>

(1) 1600 – Move worker to NY’s rice patch and order construction on a farm. Move our warrior to within two squares of Washington.

(2) 1560 – Washington’s worker completes and moves due south to start a farm. Washington begins training a settler.

(3) 1520 – nada

(4) 1480 – ditto

(5) 1440 – napped

(6) 1400 – Started a road on NY’s completed rice patch.

(7) 1360 – NY’s barracks completes and begins training a chariot.

(8) 1320 – Moved worker from NY towards red dot

(9) 1280 – Moved two workers to the connection spot for red dot and order a road.

(10) 1240 – Road completes and allows Washington’s new settler to reach red dot in one turn. Washington begins training a worker. Farm production begins adjacent to red dot.

The save: 102376

102377

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Speaker
Arizona_Steve
Reagan
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW

Strategy decisions/questions/notes (from my pespective):

- Do we try for the Religion that comes with Code of Laws (Taoism, I think)? A religion is nice for happiness and since we won't be getting one from our neighbors anytime soon, it might be nice to form our own.
- Optics is the tech that allows for caravels, which are the first ships to be able to even enter oceans. That's a ways away, but we might want to keep it in mind.
- Libraries? I thought that was one of the reasons we went to Writing, was to get a bit of culture going and to improve our research. I'd start building them ASAP. Remember, buildings are free in Civ4. We're probably going to be alone for a while, so we need to be able to research relatively quickly.
- With a bit of health now and more coming soon, I'd let Washington grow to size 5 relatively soon. Bigger cities ARE better.
- Do we want a wonder? (I think yes, several) We have both stone and marble, two things that help speed a lot of early wonders. We have the tech to quarry them, so I'd make getting those going a fairly high worker priority. After a bit more military, I'd probably stick NY on a wonder. Which wonder to build is a good question.
- Note: If Steveville produces a work boat, we can put nets on those clams and get the health benefit, even though no city can work them yet. It's probably worth doing shortly after the galley (maybe a library first).
- Monarchy is another worthwhile tech target. It allows us to build wine presses to get happiness from our wine and would allow the "Hereditary Rule" civic, which we can use to help with happiness, too, with military units.

Arathorn

0) 1240BC - deep breath, close eyes, hit <enter> ..

We are go!

1) 1200BC - settler founds San Francisco at red dot, San Francisco starts to build .. hmmm .. game suggests Work Boat or Lighthouse. Nothing useful for a Work Boat to do round this side of the island. I consider a Warrior, but probably better to build military in New York with the barracks. With decent food and not much production probably best to let it grow and bit and then build settlers/workers, but meanwhile I have to put shields into something, and a Lighthouse will certainly be useful here. So Lighthouse it is. (Also, being Organized, we get Lighthouse at half cost. I considered a Granary, but that would take, like, forever.)

I note that we're getting the happiness bonus from the gold under San Francisco, even without a mine though. Is a mine not required for the happiness bonus? Or does the city count as a mine?

IT: Chariot finishes in New York, starts, hmm, Granary. I don't think there's any urgent need to build up military on our little island, so going for growth here.

2) 1160BC - new Chariot heads west to keep watch on that end of the island.

3) 1120BC - time passes.

IT: Washington finishes Settler (correction) Worker, starts on Granary. Yeah, I like Granaries. Blame Sirian :) (Though probably with the new worker/settler build rules it will turn out that Granaries are not nearly so important in Civ IV.)

4) 1080BC - workers are building farms in the floodplains, our Chariot out west spots a barbarian camp.

IT: barbarians attack the western Chariot, Chariot is victorious.

5) 1040BC - time passes.

6) 1000BC - time passes.

IT: San Francisco grows to size 2, New York to size 4.

7) 975BC - time passes.

IT: Washington to size 5.

8) 950BC - send workers east to build improvements around New York. (But when they get there, I find there's not really much they can do. Building a farm in a forest will destroy the forest. We can't chop the forests for real because we don't have the necessary tech. I wonder briefly if building the farm will give us the chopped forest production boost, but don't think this is quite the moment to experiment.)

IT: Steveville finishes Galley, starts on Work Boat (we need the health bonus from the clams).

9) 925BC - a worker crew heads west to build a road to the stone.

IT: we discover the Alphabet! :dance:

Washington finishes Granary, starts on Settler.

10) 900BC - looking at the in-game tech tree it looks like we ought to be able to go to Literature next (<ponder>Great Library</ponder>) but when I try to select it I find we have to go through Mysticism and Polytheism first. I've left it on Mysticism, but we haven't actually done any research yet, so can be freely changed.

monkey monkey monkey

Got it.

Is a mine not required for the happiness bonus? Or does the city count as a mine?

City counts as a mine -- or as working the tile, at least. I'm not sure if you need the tech to make it work (e.g., I don't know if settling on wine before you have Monarchy or silks before Calendar will give the boost or not), but it does connect the resource. If you're desperate for a resource (like copper or iron), this is the fastest way to hook it up.

Agreed on the growth focus. As long as we don't overgrow our happiness, we'll be fine.

As for techs...well, bronze working allows tree chopping, so I might look into that. I think granaries still require Pottery, so we have that? We need to start building some cottages, too. I agree that the Great Library would be useful, but there might be some higher priorities.

Anyway, got it and will hopefully play tonight.

Roster:
Arathorn -- UP NOW
Speaker -- on deck
Arizona_Steve
Reagan
Jaffa Tamarin

Arathorn

Um, you have half price forges and are spending 20 turns on Alphabet to trade with civs you may not meet until Optics? Note: granaries also increase health (doubling the effect of certain health resources) and forges give happiness with gold, silver, and gems. Your research on anything willl be painfully slow until you get the cottages growing or some lighthouses (half-price) manned. Roads, mines (but not gold mines!), and farms produce no commerce.

We're all just learning here, but some good things to keep in mind.

(0) 900 - A bit of MM. Washington can move from forest to irrigated flood plain. Makes 17 progress/turn towards settler instead of 16. And it gives us an extra commerce. Piddly and probably not worth it, but, hey, I’m learning here. YIKES! San Francisco is at its health limit already. 4. Well, that sucks. We don’t need a lighthouse now, we need health, so that means a granary for SF. I pop it into the queue, moving the lighthouse down.

(1) 875 - Send the galley south. We’ve already seen all ocean to the north and our galley can’t cross that. Our only hope is via the tundra island to the south or a bit of land just west of the capital where I didn’t scout all the way to the ocean. But our chariot can take care of viewing that.

Why are we working on tundra??? There’s a lot better choices around, like the grassland by the river. That makes no sense to me. One worker is sent to irrigate the grass by NY and the other to mine one of SF’s gold hills, so it has some hammer production potential, since it needs that badly at this point.

Wake the western chariot to do some fog-peering. Yep, definitely ocean that way. Only hope for contact before Optics is via the tundra island in the south. The rest is all ocean.

(I) NY granary -> library. We want the cultural expansion AND the added commerce..

(2) 850 - Where I thought I could irrigate, I couldn’t. Rivers don’t connect diagonally. So, I start a cottage. That’ll be commerce central, eventually. Mine the gold hill. Move the chariot back. Will promote it twice (+20% generic strength) and then re-fortify as a look-out.

(3) 825 - Nada.

(I) Mysticism in. Polytheism started. Code of Laws and Literature both require it. One of those should be our target.

(4) 800 - Nada. (5) 775 - Same

(I) Barb warrior appears in the east. Steveville completes WorkBoat. Starts Library.

(6) 750 - Wake our chariot and kill the barb while he’s still on poor defensive terrain (tundra). We win easily enough. Cottage completed. Start roading the square.

(I) Washington completes settler. Starts a library (anybody notice a theme here?)

(7) 725 - Send the settler to my blue dot location in the west to get the clams. I thought seriously about red for stone, but I am still more in the food/grow than wonders mode at this point.

(8) 700 - Worker actions. Another cottage by NY for now. A quarry on the marble is started, to help Steveville’s production. And a net put on the clams.

(I) Polytheism in. Tough call on the next tech. I want to push to Code of Laws for maybe a religion of our own. And courthouses, too, are an economic boon. Bronze working to cut down trees will be necessary at SOME point. But, I went with Literature. Great Library can hopefully help us keep up technologically. And it’s double production speed with Marble, which we’re getting close to having connected. (And I experience the Alt-Tab wrong-thing-on-top bug. How do I close this window?)

(9) 675 - Lost in trying to get out of the window. Eventually hit F6 and it came on top so I could exit. Very annoying. Most everybody was busy anyway, so no huge loss.

(10) 650 - Boston formed (maybe one turn late). Starts a very veto-able Granary.

Suggestions for next leader:
- After Washington’s library completes, re-arrange tiles back to the flood plains and crank out another settler or two. I told the governor to not allow growth, else he’d let the city grow to unhappiness. But we’ll need to uncheck that when we have some happiness for Washington. Settlers can use extra food, though, so re-arrange back to food and not hammers when you’re dong that.
- Start NY on Great Library after it’s library completes. Hopefully, the marble will be up and running at that point. I temporarily have NY on high food and commerce, so that the library build better matches our expected time to Literature. (Go to 100% science so they exactly match?) When GL starts, put it back on high shields.
- Watch happiness. Growing to bad health is OK. Growing to unhappy is very undesirable. We’ll be able to use scientists in our cities soon. That’s a reasonable way to slow growth. Hooking up happiness is also critical. Monarchy allows wineries, which we can use. Code of Laws would give us a religion, so we could build temples, if we get it first, which seems semi-unlikely.
- Keep exploring tundra island. It at least has some horses, so it might have some more valuable stuff.

No screenie. Very little has changed.

Arathorn

Lurker comment: Metal Casting gives you forges, which you can build at half-price, boost production 25%, and give you an extra happy face. Also allows Collossus, which works for water tiles in ALL cities. Just suggesting this since I've let that tree go too long in two of my games then regretted it.

If you are stuck on this island, Astronomy can be beelined to much earlier than you'd think - check it on the sci advisor screen.

Forges do NOT give a happy. They give an unhealthy face.

But metal-casting is still a ways out. We have some sharper needs. Heck, we don't even know Bronze Working yet, let alone Iron Working, which is a hard prerequisite.

Roster (forgot last night):
Arathorn
Speaker -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Reagan
Jaffa Tamarin

Arathorn

More screenies, please. Danke. :)

Very VERY little has changed since Reagan's screenshot. We have two more cities, a bit more land worked, and can see a tiny bit of an island to our south. Just hardly seems worth it...especially when the built-in screen capture just gives me an all-black jpg.

Arathorn

Um, someone needs to read their Civilopedia. Forges give +1 happy for gold, gems, and silver. Prereqs are Bronze Working and Pottery.

I see it, but won't "get it" until tonight.

Got it.

650BC (IT): MM the aptly-named San Francisco for growth, bad health be damned. If the penalty for being unhealthy is not exponential (which it isn't), and their are no other consequences, it will not scare me if I've got enough food to keep growing.

600BC (2): Stonehenge is built in a faraway land.

550BC (4): Workers move on to new tasks. I would have preferred to irrigate at least one of New York's grassland tiles so we can be sure to use all the hills for production, but unfortunately we cannot irrigate any of the tiles inside the red box until Civil Service.

We also can't build a mine on the hill in our radius (shaded red) until we discover Bronze Working to chop the forest down. I start roading the Sheep.

We're going to be relatively food poor until Civil Service in fact.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Irrigation.jpg

525BC (5): Washington completes Library, starts Worker for Bahston.

500BC (6): Finish Literature, start Bronze Working (4) turns, to mine forested hills, and lead to Metal Casting and Optics.

475BC (7): New York Library => Chariot. We could use one more Chariot to maintain control over the island, and I just don't think the Great Library is worth building at this point. The two free scientists are nice from a GP standpoint, but even still, it will take them a while to earn a Great Scientist. There are other wonders I like a lot more, like the Parthenon. I'd wait for wonder buidling in New York until we can mine a couple hills. New York worker mines the hill near Steveville, which is perfectly times to complete when New York's cultural borders expand, pulling in the already-roaded sheep.

450BC (8): Everything is micromanaged to my satisfaction.

425BC (9): Washington Worker => Parthenon. Veto next turn if you think it's too late. But with the hill being mined, it should be possible. We have two big wonder bonuses helping us toward it (Industrious, and Marble).

400BC (10): Pyramids are completed in a land far away.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_400BC.jpg

LotR16 - 400BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_BC-0400.zip)

Looks reasonable. Not the way I would've played it. (The two free scientists are also 6 beakers/turn...like 2 extra pop that doesn't need to be fed -- I think that's valuable.) But that's the whole point of SGs. We are going to need a few more settlers before long. SF provide them?

How goes the scouting of the southern tundra island?

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Reagan -- on deck
Jaffa Tamarin

Arathorn

Playing now...

(0) 400BC
Not a lot to do here. Washington will become unhappy if it's allowed to grow, so I switch one citizen from plains to forested plains for an extra shield, bringing the Parthenon down from 13 to 12 turns.
San Fransisco will become unhappy if allowed to grow. Switch one citizen to a mine to get the granary next turn. There's also a nasty green cloud eminating from it's citizens' underwear.
New York will need to be switched to max production soon or it will go unhappy.
We do seem to have a shortage of workers, there are a number of tiles being worked by our cities that could do with some improvements.

IT:
Bronze Working comes in. I'm going to head to Currency as markets will help us to support more cities. Mathematics selected.
San Fransisco completes Granary, switches to Worker. Switch one citizen from mine to farmed floodplain to take two turns of the completion time.
See no point in losing production for one turn just to switch to Salvery, so leave things as is for now.

(1) 375BC
Move some workers around.

IT:
Apparently we're the third wealthiest civilization.

(2) 350BC
(3) 325BC
Notice that stupid me let New York grow. Ugh! Unhappy citizen. Not only is the effect rather subtle, but there is no way of dealing with unhappy citizens short of getting an extra luxury or happy building up. Only just noticed the wines there, so should've researched Monarchy to get a vinyard. Not good.

IT:
New York - Chariot -> Settler
Steveville - Library -> Granary

(4) 300BC
Chariot is given flanking promotion (+10 withdrawal chance).

(5) 275BC
(6) 250BC

IT:
San Fransisco - Worker -> Lighthouse

(7) 225BC
Workers from San Fransisco go to pasture the sheep near New York.

IT:
Confucinism is founded in a distant land.

(8) 200BC
Shift another citizen to a mine in Washington to take another turn off the Parthenon.

IT:
Mathematics comes in. Priesthood selected. Monarchy will be next (to connect the wines and bring some much needed happiness).
Steveville gets a border expansion.

(9) 175BC
San Fransisco goes to a temporary startvation diet to prevent the addition of an angry citizen.

(10) 150BC
Sheep have come online, and San Fransisco is no longer unhealthy, or starving. It's optimized for no growth and should stay this way until the wines are brought online.
Parthenon will complete this turn. MM washington to no growth to avoid angry citizen next turn. Might want to review this though, I think Parthenon adds some happiness.

No pictures, but then, no new cities were added...

The Save: LOTR16 - 150BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_BC-0150.zip)

Got it. Probably won't be able to play until tonight or tomorrow, though.

I'm afraid I have to ask for an indefinite skip. Civ is not playing nicely with my computer. I frequently get a crash when a movie pops up (I can't get past the Parthenon movie in this game) and I can't micromange without tearing my hair out because I have the "food only" bug in the city screen. I'm really close to turning the game into a pair of expensive coasters. My machine can handle Guild Wars just fine, but Civ is giving it fits. I'll understand if you want to replace me on the team, but I'm hopeful the patch that is expected to be released soon will solve my problems.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Speaker
Arizona_Steve
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW

If Reagan still can't play after the patch expected in the next 7-10 days, I will look for a replacement player. Until then, he's still on the roster.

Arathorn

0) 150BC - hit <enter>

IT: we learn about the Priesthood, and build the Parthenon. Watch the pretty movie! [party]

Lighthouse completes in San Francisco.

Merit Ptah has been born in a far away land. This should mean something to me, I'm sure. Is there a list somewhere so I can tell what kind of Great Person a random name-I-never-heard-of might be?

1) 125BC - why can't I see time-to-complete for city growth and construction on my map? Hmm .. *digs around in options* .. ah, here it is. I'm sure I used to be able to see them, so how did that get switched off?

Parthenon doesn't give us any happiness boost :gripe:, so Washington and San Francisco are still stuck at their present size. I don't see anything short term that's useful for happiness.

Lured by possibilities of a free tech, Washington starts building The Oracle (4 turns). San Francisco starts a library.

While we're building wonders (and not growing) in Washington, run some workers over to mine the one undeveloped floodplains square we're using. Or not. Can't mine the floodplains (or can't mine the desert?), so we build a cottage instead. Also send some workers to hook up the stones.

Start research on Monarchy so we can get the happy bonus from our wines, and send some workers over to hook them up.

Accidentally move our warrior out of New York while dealing with workers, and citizens start complaining. Oops.

IT: Boston grows, and finishes granary, starts library.

2) 100BC - the chariot out of New York wonders around somewhat randomly as I get confused over which mouse button does what, eventually heads towards Boston.

IT: there almost is no IT as I somehow manage to pause the game and have to search through the manual to figure out how to restart. Okay, so it's the <pause> key. That was just too obvious.

3) 75BC - time passes, workers build roads.

IT: Steveville finishes granary, starts lighthouse.

4) 50BC - some workers set to building mines in hills. Not sure how the 'small chance to discover metals' works, but it couldn't hurt.

IT: Washington completes The Oracle! :hammer: Hmm .. free tech .. Music is the most expensive tech available, we get a free Great Artist if we discover Music first (googling Merit Ptah reveals that she was a scientist, so I'm hoping nobody else has Music yet). And we can build the Notre Dame, for +1 happy all round. We need happy.

Start building Notre Dame. Need to get that stone hooked up ASAP.

New York finishes settler, starts warrior. We need more troops in our cities for happiness purposes.

Homer is born in Washington. :woohoo:

5) 25BC - hmm, I'm tempted to use Homer for tech discovery, but there's nothing we need urgently so will leave for discussion with the rest of the team.

MM Washington for max production and temporary food shortage.

IT: New York finishes warrior, starts another.

6) 1AD - ah, can't quarry the stone until it's within our cultural borders. Good thing I already have a settler heading over there.

IT: Xi Ling Shi and Moses are born in far away lands.

7) 25AD - time passes.

IT: New York trains warrior, starts another.

8) 50AD - Denver founded in the eastern mountains (or the foothills thereof), workers immediately start on a quarry.

IT: we learn of kings and things. Monarchy is here! Go for the wine!

Start research on Iron Working since we really would like to get to Optics soonish.

Steveville finishes lighthouse, starts settler.

9) 75AD - time passes, workers work.

IT: New York trains another warrior. I've left it on warrior for now, but not sure we need more at the moment.

10) 100AD - hmm, we're getting the stone production boost for building Notre Dame even without a quarry, guess it only needs the stone to be connected.

We could go for Hereditary Rule which would allow us to use military units to boost happiness. I would hold off on changing at least until we've finished building Notre Dame (though one turn anarchy probably won't make that much difference).

Got it (err...will "get it" after I'm home). Judging by the picture, we're locked into a number of builds that will last beyond the end of my turn. So I'll probably mostly be doing worker stuff.

I do think we want to get to HR (Hereditary Rule) as quickly as we can. We have few sources of happy and happy is quite critical. I'll judge whether to revolt on my turn based on the F1 screen. I'll most likely wait a bit, as we're in a wonder race.

Boy, our tech choices are pretty haphazard. At some point in our Civ4 careers, we should really learn to have some focus and go with it (I think).

Arathorn

Boy, our tech choices are pretty haphazard.

Haphazard? Never!

They are, erm, "driven by short-term tactical considerations rather than having a long-term strategic goal in mind" :D

(0) 100 - Minor changes. Note Washington will starve before completion of its wonder, so that will need to be watched, but probably not on my turn.

I debate putting Steveville on a minor starvation diet to get the settler faster, but we’re working a cottage up to speed, too, and we’ll need commerce later, so I let it go.

NY swaps off YAW (yet another warrior) to the Great Library. At only 12 turns, we should have a reasonable shot at this, but only if we start now (10 turns ago would have been better). Worst case, it helps our sagging economy recover.

I also wake our galley to continue exploring the southern, tundra island. Why wasn’t this done before?????

I change our research off Iron Working to calendar. It allows us to use our sugar, centers our world map, and helps a lot. A bit of jungle isn’t going to kill us. But we will want IW before too long. Only 90 beakers in, so it shouldn’t decay much, if at all.

(1) 125 - NY’s newest warrior is sent to provide token, feel-good defense to Denver. Workers working hard at … what they’re working at. Irrigation by Denver, winery by NY, etc.

(I) SF Library -> Settler. And we now have 500,000 people.

(4) 200 - Along in here somewhere, I chopped a forest to help NY towards its GL goal. It was on a hill we’d already roaded, so it wasn’t expanding anywhere and we can get better production with a mine anyway. Wish I could help Washington similarly.

As for the galley, OK, ice blocked our passage. But that doesn’t explain why no unit was created and earmarked to be ferried over for exploration purposes. Already that island has horses. What other treasures might it contain?

(6) 250 - I can take Washington off starvation, put it back on growth (we have an extra happy even without Notre Dame finishing), and still finish in the same number of turns (6). I do so.

(9) 325 - Things start hopping. Great Library completes in NY. That’ll help a bit with science. Calendar comes in, and we’re in the lower right corner of the overall map. We are pretty small still. NY goes on warrior to be sent over by galley to explore the island. Back to IW for tech. But our sugar will be active soon. And Mahavira is born. A Great Prophet? Interesting, since we don’t have any religion. We have two Great People (an artist and a prophet). Do we trigger a Golden Age? I think we might get more benefit using them for beakers for expensive techs, once we’re ready. I dunno. So I defer to the next leader, like the leaders before me.

Oh. We can’t build a plantation, because we can’t clear the jungle. Guess we did need IW sooner rather than later. Mea culpa. We’ll know how to chop jungle here real soon now, though. And then we can get that plantation up and running. I just wish we had some other sources of “happy”.

(I) Boston completes Library. It’s out of happy, so I make one citizen into a Scientist. Once Notre Dame finishes, he could go back to work. I start on a Lighthouse, but that could be easily vetoed.

(10) 350 - Little to say.

Strategy notes:
- After Notre Dame comes in, I think we should revolt to Hereditary Rule to help even more with happiness.
- The warrior in the SE is to get on the galley and explore the southern island.
- Metal-Casting for Forges would be a good tech. Else beeline Optics. We need some contact to help us out of this behind start.
- We should finish settling our island pronto. I’d put NY on a settler after its chariot build, probably. The chariot was also intended as an option for south island.
- We have two great people. Having them sit is not good. We should either trigger a GA or merge them into cities to be super-specialists for a long time. I lean towards the latter. Which city? NY or Washington, probably, since they don’t consume food and just give value.

Here’s our pathetic demographics situation:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16-350ad-demographics.JPG

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin

Arathorn

Got it.

Teaser image:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Tao1.jpg

350AD (IT): What to do with those Great People.

1) It's too early to start our first Golden Age. We have few buildings to build, and low populations.
2) Super-specialists? Bah!
3) Free Technologies are where it's at.
A religion will make our happiness problems go away, and help us raise some much needed cash. But how can we get a religion, you ask? The early ones are all taken. Christianity is still around, but that will be gone before we can get it. Watch and learn my friends.

MM our cities for growth. With Notre Dame coming in 2 turns and a religion and switch to Hereditary Rule after that, we'll be able to maintain higher populations. Free Technology is a huge benefit that will be often overlooked for the "sexier" benefits like super-specialists and great works. But not by this guy.

Switch research to Meditation, due in 2, and emphasize science in most cities.

375AD (1): Just as I suspected, but earlier than I anticipated, Christianity is founded. New York goes to Settler to finish settling the island. Chariot heads south to explore the island.

The Settler from San Francisco heads to the northwest corner of the continent to found a city that will pull in the fishies.

400AD (2): Washington completes Notre Dame and goes to National Epic. It's a toss up with New York for which will be our best GP city. I chose Washington. Sue me. Denver Lighthouse => Granary. This should have been done the other way around, as it has a couple land tiles to work before it runs out of food.

Meditation is discovered, and I start work on Philosophy, due in 11. Um how? Homer discovers Drama for us first. :lol:

425AD (3): Nothing much.

450AD (4): Explore ice island. Workers work. Creative micromanagement and upping the science rate shaves 2 turns off Philosophy (due in 7 now). Money will be tight at the end.

475AD (5): Found Philadelphia in the northwest. Start on a granary, to be followed by a lighthouse.

500AD (6): Nothing much.

520AD (7): Settler trained in Steveville. Lighthouse built in Boston. Both start on Aqueducts. No health problems yet, but as soon as Philosophy comes in, we should start cranking up the food!

540AD (8): Found Hotlanta on pink dot. This will be a nice city for us once it gets up to speed. Cottagorama I think!

560AD (9): Ptolemy is born in New York and can discover Philosophy for us this turn. We'll hold onto him for a minute here I think, with Philo due in 2.

580AD (10): With Philo due in 1, I mm our cities back to max growth. I'm going to take the liberty of one more turn, to even the years out here.

600AD (11): Discover Philosophy and found Taoism, however I don't convert to it just yet. I'd wait to spread it at least with the free missionary before doing so. Missionary heads to Washington and arrives, but is out of movement. Spread Taoism there, unless it spreads on its own. In that case, send it to New York. New York trains a settler and starts an aqueduct. Research picked back up on Iron Working (due in 1), to be able to chop jungles.

Notes:
* Movement left on Settler in NYC.
* I'm yet another leader to pass off the game with 2 available Great People (Prophet in DC, Scientist in NYC). Do as you will. The Great Scientist can help finish Iron Working this turn (which obviously we wouldn't do since it will finish next turn anyways), and I think it will be able to research Compass for us next turn. Might not be a bad idea on the way to Optics, but it's up to you...
* The name of the game now is spreading our religion to all our cities and thinking about converting to Organized Religion for the production boost.
* We'll need Monotheism for that, so maybe research it after Iron Working comes through?
* Grow grow grow. Starting next turn we can chop jungles, so we'll add another luxury. Add happiness from religion (which we'll need to convert to at some point), and we can support bigger cities!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_600AD.jpg

Tao are you doing? (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600.zip)

So, Boston is the center of Taoism in the world? Cool. A bit of religious happiness will go a long ways.

San Fran is unhappy? Tut-tut. We want to avoid that. Unhealthy is fun, but unhappy is generally pretty bad. And if it's unhappy, why are we working on growing it bigger??? I'd spread Taoism there first and build a temple ASAP.

I also question the need for all the aqueducts. They only provide two health. Are our cities so close to the health border that we need all those aqueducts? We have at least 4 healthy foods (cows, sheep, rice, and fish) for our citizens. That's size 8 (or do we start with 5 or even 6 healthy?) at least, depending on flood plains/forests around without unhealthy problems. I thought we had clams, too, so that's 9. 10/11 with granaries. I'd look very closely before building those aqueducts. I'm thinking we probably have 12-13 healthy faces in most cities (not SF, obviously). I think those aqueducts can wait, at the very least. We still have a couple dots to claim. And what about courthouses to help our economy? Or forges for the hammer boost?

Optics is high on my priority list, for caravels to go find our friends and neighbors.

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck

Arathorn

Got it. Looks like I've got a few decisions to make. I won't be playing until this evening, so any and all suggestions are welcome.

San Francisco, though unhappy, is growing because we have another luxury coming in a few turns, and religion to spread. The missionary in DC can head to San Fran ASAP if desired.

I may have gone a little overboard with the Aqueducts right now, but we don't yet have the technology to build Forges, and I don't think we can build courthouses either, but don't quote me on that. I wanted to grow our "Settler" cities now that we can afford the happiness (ie New York and Washington). Aqueducts seemed as good as anything else to put shields, er hammers into in the meantime. We already have Libraries everywhere (notice I didn't say "liberry" or "tomorry").

(0) 600AD:
Speaker sure has left me with a bunch of decisions. Start with the cities.
Washington - Growing fast, building National Epic, due in 4. We have some headroom there, so I will let it grow for now.
New York - Growing fast, building Aquaduct, but has no sh... erm... hammers towards this. Will leave this for now. Prime candidate for some religion and a Temple.
Steveville - Moderate growth, building Aquaduct, due in 28. No change.
San Francisco - Oh dear. It's people are unhappy, and there's a nasty green smog hanging over the city. Switch to automate (max production, avoid growth) and Aquaduct is due in 7 turns instead of 25. If it doesn't get religious before the Aquaduct completes, then it's a prime target for a Missionary.
Boston - Moderate growth, building Aquaduct (10 turns). It's happy-limited, so I set it to build a Taoist temple (9 turns) before continuing the Aquaduct. Switch to automate (max production, avoid growth), which includes one scientist in the city.
Denver - Moderate growth, building Granary (15 turns). No changes necessary.
Philadelphia - Building Granary, but will take forever. Lighthouse is more important to increase food there. Switched.
Hotlanta - Building Library. This will work for now. Switched to max food.

I move the settler to the west of our land, intending to settle on the tundra next to wines. A second source of luxuries will be importnt for trades at some point.
There's also Great People available. Seems a little too early for a Golden Age, so I send Mahavira (Great Prophet) to Boston to build a shrine to the Taoist faith. Ptolemy (Great Scientist) will discover a technology after Iron Working is completed this turn.

IT:
Iron Working comes in. I go to the Big Picture and queue up Optics for Caravals. It's going to take us four techs (Compass, Metal Casting, Machinery and Optics) to get there. Ptolemy should hang around until Machinery and research that, since it is the most expensive of the four.

(1) 620AD:
It turns out that one of our farms near Boston was actually a front for a secret (and successful) geological exploration company, as Iron is found there. Not quite "Popped another one" in Sirian-speak, but pretty good nonetheless.

Mahavira builds the Dai Miao in Boston.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600A.jpg

Boston also switches to a Taoist Temple as it is happiness-limited. Aquaduct remains in the queue.
Scottsdale founded next to a second source of wines. It's stuck in the tundra, totally opposite to the "real" Scottsdale (suggested city name was Atlanta, but Hotlanta seemed a little to close to that). Set to max food. Starts on lighthouse, due in 10 turns thanks to a plains forest tile.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600B.jpg

IT:
Yawn.

(2) 640AD:
Forest if chopped next to Washington, goving 48 shields for the National Epic.
Looks like the governor is going to allow New York to grow into unhappiness this turn, so I manually set it to starve for a turn.

IT:
Yawn.

(3) 660AD:
National Epic completes in Washington.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600C.jpg

Taoist Temple selected as Washington is happy-limited. And..

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600D.jpg

New York switched back to max production and avoid growth.
Boston will grow this turn. I want to see if the "avoid growth" govenor option actually works.

IT:
Taoism spreads automatically to Denver.

(4) 680AD:
There's Iron near to Hotlanta, and workers are available to start mining it.
Looks like the "Avoid Growth" works, despite there being enough food last turn to grow, the city did not grow. Not sure what happens though, does the excess food get converted to production?

IT:
Yawn.

(5) 700AD:
Yawn.

IT:
Yawn.

(6) 720AD:
For some reason Washington has become unhealthy (forest chop, perhaps?). I emphasize production as well as food and knock a few turns off the Temple building there. It'll start an Aquaduct once it has finished.

IT:
San Francisco builds Aquaduct. Set to Hanging Gardens for now.

(7) 740AD:
San Francisco has an Aquaduct now, but it is STILL unhealthy? Geeze. Move Taoist Missionary over to San Francisco. Cannot convert this turn, so one turn's production goes to a worker. Set to max commerce for this turn.
Set Washington to avoid growth and max production as it is at it's happy limit. Taoist temple is due this turn as a result.

IT:
Iron comes online.
Washington - Taoist Temple -> Aquaduct
New York - Aquaduct -> Axeman

(8) 760AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600E.jpg

Our Missionary has spread Taoism to San Francisco, and a Temple is ordered up. San Fransisco switches to max production and avoid growth.
Washington is allowed to grow again, but is kept production-heavy.
Emphasize production and commerce in Hotlanta to make the most of the cottages.

IT:
Zoroastor, a great Prophet, is born in Washington.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0600F.jpg

(9) 780AD:
Since it's near the end of my turns, I leave the Great Prophet in Washington for the next leader.
I wonder if anyone noticed the sugar near Boston. Workers are immediately dispatched as this is an extra happy face for us.

IT:
Compass comes in. Metal Casting is immediately ordered up.
Boston - Taoist Temple -> Aquaduct.

(10) 800AD:
Boston is switched back to growth (max production though).


NOTES:
Note that we can build harbors now. These'll add to our health.
Recheck happiness in cities once the sugar gets a platation (in progress).
I thought about switching to Heritary Rule and/or Pacifism. Military unit cost put me off. Next leader may want to reconsider.
I have set us on a direct run to Optics. Feel free to veto. If we continue this route, use the Great Scientist for Machinery as this is the most expensive tech on this path.
Galley is fortified outside Scottsdale. It can be used to ferry a settler over to the land to the South.

LotR16 Save File - 800AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-0800.zip)

Philadelphia - Building Granary, but will take forever. Lighthouse is more important to increase food there. Switched.
I figured we'd gain more by putting in the granary first, at no growth, with the mined hill, and then building the lighthouse after that when we could grow faster. Sirian did something similar with his "Black Dot." *shrug*

I wonder if anyone noticed the sugar near Boston. Workers are immediately dispatched as this is an extra happy face for us.

See: San Francisco, though unhappy, is growing because we have another luxury coming in a few turns, and religion to spread. The missionary in DC can head to San Fran ASAP if desired.

And: Starting next turn we can chop jungles, so we'll add another luxury.
My bad. Should have been more specific.

I agree on the push to Optics. I hope the Scientist can help. I also agree on using the Great Prophet for the Taoist shrine. We should get Boston some commerce-boosting buildings (grocer, market, etc.) as soon as they are available.

Yeah, the sugar's been noted by a couple of us. The LONG delay on Iron Working kept it from being hooked up. I think the religion was worth it on Speaker's turn (Calendar on my turns is less clear). Hopefully the delay in getting it hooked up will be rectified soon.

does the excess food get converted to production?

Nope. It just goes to waste. For cities on "avoid growth", we should really start looking into more specialists. One Civ3 habit I'm still having a hard time breaking is that using specialists, even in "core cities", is NOT a bad thing. They have much more value in Civ4. We should look into specialists in all cities with "Avoid Growth" and/or at their happy limit. It might make things better.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Speaker
Arizona_Steve
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW

Arathorn

Calendar on my turns is less clear
Didn't we need Calendar to build a plantation anyways?

Got it, will play tonight/tomorrow.

0) 800AD - MM Washington to finish aqueduct one turn sooner. Ponder switching to Hanging Gardens first. (But this seems to be a bug. Hanging Gardens requires an aqueduct -- I shouldn't be able to switch to Hanging Gardens just because of having an aqueduct in progress.)

I really would like an on-screen clickie or some key other than <enter> to leave the city detail screen, as I then go and hit <enter> at the main screen, which ends the turn before checking the other cities, and have to reload and start over. (Later: I discover the "hit <enter>" message on the city screen does act as a clickie, but the message for next turn on the main screen doesn't, so that helps. I'd still like something more obviously different though.)

I move the culture slider to 10%, which cures the unhappy problem in San Francisco and allows us to put the extra citizen to work, increasing our science output by 6 beakers (but we go from +2gpt to break even).

New York switches from axeman to theatre, axeman left in queue.

I consult our Great Persons. If we use Ptolemy now, he will discover Metal Casting for us. There's no guarantee that he will give us Machinery if we go ahead and research Metal Casting (we don't get to choose what tech they discover, they just give us one from their area of expertise). I think it's more likely he'll offer Construction.

With our two Great People, we could launch a Golden Age. We're currently working 51 squares, which would be a maximum of around 400 extra commerce (and so beakers) over an 8 turn Golden Age. 400 beakers isn't even enough to finish Metal Casting.

I hand Ptolemy over to the Monkey Cult, and they take him off somewhere and return with the secret of Metal Casting. We start research on Machinery.

Zoraster settles in Washington as prophet-in-residence (super specialist, +2 hammers, +5 gold).

Boston delays plans for an aqueduct to start on building a Taoist monastery, so we can train missionaries.

Hotlanta switches from library to granary.

IT: Boston grows to size 8.

There is one unknown Civ that is less advanced than LotR16 the Pathetic! :woohoo:

Scottsdale finishes lighthouse, starts on granary.

1) 820AD - time passes, some workers from around Hotlanta ordered west to help with plantation construction.

IT: Taoism spreads to Philadelphia.

2) 840AD - workers start a winery near Scottsdale.

IT: Denver grows to size 4.

Washington finishes aqueduct, starts on Hanging Gardens, re-MMed now that it has an aqueduct so it will grow next turn.

3) 860AD - time passes.

IT: Philadelphia finishes lighthouse, resumes the granary it abandoned earlier.

New York finishes theatre, starts on forge, axeman further delayed.

Washington grows to size 9.

4) 880AD - time passes.

IT: Denver finishes granary, starts on theatre.

5) 900AD - time passes.

IT: Steveville grows to size 6, Philadelphia to size 2.

Hotlanta finishes granary, starts lighthouse.

6) 920AD - Plantation is finished, happy-happy all round. Culture slider back to zero, now at +5gpt.

Workers sent to build a mine in place of the farm that discovered iron.

IT: Boston to size 9, New York to size 8, Scottsdale to size 2.

Boston finishes monastery, resumes work on aqueduct.

7) 940AD - time passes. MM New York and move citizens onto squares with cottages, so they will develop.

IT: San Francisco finishes temple, starts on harbor (for the extra health from clams).

8) 960AD - time passes, workers sent to clear jungle for want of anything obviously better to do.

IT: Washington builds Hanging Gardens! [party]

I get the message: "Could not read file Sounds/Buildings/HangingGardens". Another bug?

Steveville finishes aqueduct, starts theatre.

Our empire now has two million citizens.

Taoism spreads to New York.

New York finishes forge.

9) 980AD - the increase in population from Hanging Gardens has pushed Boston past its happy limit, switch Boston to forge (for the extra happy from gold).

Washington, San Francisco and New York are also at happy limit. New York is building a temple (axeman still delayed), and start a forge in Washington which should complete on the same turn it next grows.

IT: We discover the secrets of Machinery! Optics in 6 turns.

10) 1000AD - my decision to build a forge in Boston somehow got lost, so I start it on forge this turn instead.

San Francisco and Boston are both set to avoid growth. Possibly (I think likely) it would be better to let them grow, and put a point into the culture slider. I leave that decision to the next leader.

See it. Will play tomorrow night, I hope.

Arathorn

(0) 1000 - I go through and look at cities. A Harbor in San Francisco when it only has one trade route and it’s only producing 1 gold/turn doesn’t seem like a good investment. It’s at it happy limit but has one extra food (could be more, if needed), so I change it to a Forge. Extra shields (err…hammers) are always a good thing. I debated a Taoist Monastery or even Cathedral (whatever it’s called), but went with the forge.

Denver looks like a potentially very strong shield city, too, so it gets a forge before the theatre. I’m not sure what the purpose of the theatre there is, honestly.

(2) 1020 - Washington completes Temple and grows. We don’t have copper, so the cathedral feels suboptimal. I’m gonna start Angkor Wat. We might run a few priests (and a few more if AW completes). It’s only 9 turns, so I think it’s a good gamble. Washington can’t produce any caravels anyway. I’m also pushing the science slider to the max to see if I can squeeze Optics out one turn earlier. Caravels and contacts are going to be VERY nice as soon as possible. Meanwhile, our cottages are trying to grow, but they’re SLOW about it.

Colossus completes in a far-away land. And Philadelphia’s borders finally expanded. Hotlonta completes Lighthouse and begins Forge.

(3) 1030 - NY completes another axeman. We really should switch to Hereditary Rule at some point, to let these military units have SOME purpose. But I’m not going to with a wonder in progress and our chance for contact coming soon. Pacifism and Slavery are our other options, both of which seem reasonably good to me, but I am not revolting on my turn. Sorry. :(

(5) 1050 - Optics comes in. I start us on Code of Laws, to allow courthouses and then the Forbidden Palace. Our highest-hammer-producing coastal cities get to work on caravels immediately, too. We’ll send one east and one west, at a bare minimum.

Actually, San Francisco, our #2 hammer-producer on the coast, waits a turn to finish its forge first, as that will get the caravel out just as fast, if not faster. And Taoism continues to spread, making it to Hotlanta this year.

I really want caravels fast…and I’m willing to manage SF to get-er-done faster.

Before:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LOtR16-SF-before.JPG

After:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LOtR16-SF-after.JPG
(I set up an engineer, which we can do, since we have a forge there.)

And when Code of Laws comes in, I start us in on Currency. I’m a bit concerned about our cash and our relative commerce production. Some extra from the Dai Miao magnified by a market can only be a good thing.

In 1090, Chiang Tzu is born in Washington. Another Great Prophet. Whoop-de-doo. What’s he gonna do for us? I’d like to start getting some academies built, but… I send him to Boston. Boston’s going to be our cash city, so an extra 5 from a great prophet will only help, I think. We need to be sure to put all the commerce-magnifying buildings we can in Boston. I didn’t think discovering Monotheism was worth it :rolleye: nor did I want to wait to try for a Golden Age.

(10) 1100 - Not much to say, really. Taoist Missionary down by Scottsdale is to convert it, to get its culture started. Boston’s caravel, which completed, is sent east, as San Francisco’s can go west. They’re about the same starting location and it saves a bit of time by not needing SF’s caravel to go south around the tip of our land. We need a settler down on the south island. NY is on it now, and then should probably build a courthouse.

Once Angkor Wat finishes, we should look carefully at our specialists. We may well need/want a lot more priests, as Angkor Wat gives them a hammer bonus. Also, after it finishes, I would do some serious revolts. Maybe wait for one more caravel to come out, but we can use Hereditary Rule, Caste System and Pacifism, I’d imagine. Organized Religion might be good, too, if we ever get Monotheism.

The world as we know it:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LOtR16-1100ad.JPG

Arathorn

Denver looks like a potentially very strong shield city, too, so it gets a forge before the theatre. I’m not sure what the purpose of the theatre there is, honestly.

I may have put it in thinking it would help with happy (for some reason in the early part of my turn it got stuck in my head that we had dyes available).

We need six theatres somewhere before we can build the Globe Theatre.

Got it.

Turns are done, but the "Upload File" link seems to be down. I took a lot of pictures, so I'll wait until it's back up to post.

1100AD (IT): Add a Courthouse to the queue at New York. Veto Steveville's theatre. We have no dyes, and I doubt we'll be going with the culture slider much in the future. Steveville has little production as is and needs a harbor (+50% trade route yield). This is a city with 4 cottage+ improvements and several coast tiles. Let's increase its commerce! Additionally, it has reached its happy limit (without religion), so I increase production at the expense of growth. Micromanage Boston to stagnant growth (as opposed to +1 food plus the "avoid growth" button), and shave 1 turn off the Caravel. Note that Philly and Denver are in dire need of worker attention, and further note, after leaving the city screen, that they are receiving it.

I'll be the team player and take a few turns of anarchy, as soon as the Angor Wat and caravels are done.

1110AD (1): Washington Angor Wat => Taoist monastary (for +10% science). Scottsdale adopts the Tao of Speaker, as opposed to the Tao of Steve:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Tao_of_Steve.JPG
"Be desireless. Be excellent. Be gone."

Caravel explores East.

1120AD (2): Denver Forge => Library. All our high commerce cities should have these, and any city with a lot of coast is high commerce. San Fran Caravel => Harbor. Islam is founded in a faraway land.

1130AD (3): Currency => Monotheism (due in 1 turn). I'll wait one more turn and then convert. Philadelphia Granary => Forge. Boston Caravel => Aqueduct.

1140AD (4): Monotheism => Astronomy (for Ocean trade routes). Washington Taoist Monastary => Market. Boston Aqueduct => Taoist missionary (for Steveville). Hotlanta Forge => Library.

Shuffle a worker to the southern tundra island to begin tile improvements.

Caravel in the northeast spots land!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Land.jpg
Land Ho!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Civics.jpg
Viva la Revolution!

1150AD (5): [government reestablished] Caravel to the west spots land, but I guess I forgot to take a picture here. I meant to.

Thanks to Hereditary Rule, our cities now have more room for growth, so I take them off the starvation diet.

1160AD (6): Meet both Montezuma and Saladin.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Monty.jpg
Uh, let's not.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Saladin.jpg

Arg, I realize this turn that we never revolted to Taoism! That's 1 happy face and 1 cpt that we missed out on for every city that has Taoism (all of them but Steveville). This is not good! I will convert us now, but not before I do this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Trades.jpg

That would have been impossible if we had Taoism as a state religion because at least one of Saladin or Monty (probably Monty!) would refuse to trade with us. I also sign Open Borders with both of them, while I still can....and then convert to Taoism.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Religion.jpg

And now Saladin and Monty are both "cautious" and will not trade with us.

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good. :lol:

1170AD (7): Meet Genghis Khan and sign open borders with him as well.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Genghis.jpg

1180AD (8): Continue exploring.

1190AD (9): Meet Vicky, but I guess I forgot to take a picture of her.

Give her Literature as a gift. It is fairly wide-spread at this point, and first impressions go a long way. ;)

Found Anchorage near the South Pole. :crazyeye:

Steveville has reached its happy limit, so it goes to slight starvation, which it can sustain for 18 turns. The rest of the cities are still set to maximum growth.

1200AD (10): Meet Alex.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Alex.jpg

Francis Bacon (Great Scientist) is born in New York. I'll leave him there for now. I accidentally moved him out of the city and back in, using up his movement, so you won't get to use him until next turn.

Some food (and commerce and production) for thought:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Info.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Trade.jpg
We better make some friends *cough missionaries cough*

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_1200AD.jpg

Tao of Steve (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1200.zip)

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck

Speaker, that looked like some good trading. Hopefully wwe're mostly caught up. It's always hard to tell, because only techs you could potentially research show up on F4 and I've been down lots beyond what I can see. BUT, I think we're in good shape.

I like Astronomy for a tech choice. That should open up trade routes, not just for resources, but for our imports/exports (e.g., city-centered trade routes) as well, which will undoubtedly help our economy.

If we have Paper (I can't remember), we'll want to trade for World Maps. That should reveal a swatch across the nations, which will get us the Magellan Wonder effect, which we will definitely want. If we don't have paper, we need to keep those caravels moving east/west as much as possible, even potentially missing some intel on our foes. That +1 movement is HUGE, especially since we're stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere.

Missionaries is also a fine plan. At some point, we should figure out what everybody thinks of everybody else, so we can know who we can keep open borders with and who we can't. Generally, I like open borders with weaklings and cultivating relationships with them, so we can take down a leader if need be and not lose our only friend. BUT sometimes it's not an option. With a single religion, we can really hope to make friends. I don't think it's worth sacrificing other things for (like a real defense, now that we have some potential enemies), but a bit of cash from that (say, a single city on missionaries) would be good.

Thanx for all the pics, Speaker. Really helps us understand what's going on. And with us finally being able to explore, a lot IS going on. :)

Arathorn

Hmm... Montezuma, Alexander and Genghis Khan. Something tells me we're going to be at war before too long. The Tao of Steve will be spread throughout the world. Will play this evening.

Saladin and Monty should be easy converts to the Tao of Steve, as they have not established any religions of their own. Vicky, Alex, and Genghis will be tougher.

However, there are worse allies to have than Saladin and Monty. Let's get them botm converted in the next 10-15 turns and spread the Tao of Steve!

(0) Inherited Turn:
Man, we stink. Quite literally. Washington, San Francisco and Boston to be precise.
Washington will grow this turn, which I will allow. After which I'll switch to max production. Building Market.
New York will also grow this turn, but is below the happiness and health threshold. Building Courthouse.
Steveville is starving, but this gives a nice boost to production. Building harbor.
San Francisco stinks, but is happy as a pig in... well you know what. Building Market at a puny 3 hammers per turn.
Boston stinks too, but can grow this turn. Also building Market.
Denver will stink in 3 turns, but I will leave it to grow. Building Library... s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y...
Philadelphia is buiding a forge, although I will be a commerce city long-term.
Hotlanta is building a Library, and needs to take advantage of the cottages.
Scottsdale is building a granary, and growing slowly.
Anchorage seems strange sitting right next to Scottsdale.

Decided not to change anything for now.

IT:
Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

(1) 1210AD:
Francis Bacon reveals himself in New York, apparently left there by the previous ruler. I'm torn between an academy in Hotlanta (with all those cottages it'll be a commerce monster later in the game), and a super-specialist. OK. Flip a coin. Heads academy, tails super-specialist. And it's...

...Tails.

Super-specialist it is, based in Hotlanta. I hope there wasn't too much :smoke: in my decision-making process.
Our Caravals continue the effort to circumcise the world.... erm I mean circumnavigate. That's it.

IT:
Steveville celebrates "We Love the Monarch Day". No upkeep for that city.
In other news Victoria adopts Beaurocracy.

(2) 1220AD:
Two caravals are circumnavigating the World in an easterly direction. One is having considerably more success than the other. I will bring the less successful one back to our lands to ferry Missionaries to their targets.
Our workers waste time building roads. We need Civil Service to put them back to work irrigating tiles not next to rivers.

Time for a round of trading.

Drama and Music go to Greece. We get Civil Service.
Drama and Philosophy go to England We get Engineering.

No-one will trade anything else. Still, we can irrigate now. And get some Pikemen in our cities.

IT:
Washington - Market -> Tao of Steve Missionary.
New York - Courthouse -> Marketplace.

(3) 1230AD:
Switch workers to farm construction on plains tiles.

IT:
Washington - Tao of Steve Missionary -> Tao of Steve Missionary
Hotlanta - Library -> Courthouse

(4) 1240AD:
Switch Boston to no growth, otherwise it'll pick up angries, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

IT:
Boston - Market -> Courthouse
Scottsdale - Granary -> Forge

(5) 1250AD:
Our circumnavigating Caravals can see each other across the ocean.
Steveville quietly finished it's Harbor and started a Theater. Not what I wanted. Look through our cities and see that only New York has a Barracks. Steveville switches over. We have cities guarded by WARRIORS and we need better troops or we WILL get war declared on us.

IT:
We get this...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1300A.jpg

(6) 1260AD:
Four-move Caravals are nice :) Perfect timing in fact, as we have two missionaries ready to board one next turn.
Check for tech trades. None available at the moment.

IT:
Montezuma comes demanding Music. I cave. He's in second place and we have no chance with cities defended by WARRIORS.

(7) 1270AD:
Find out the hard way that I can only board ONE missionary onto a Caraval.

IT:
Washington - Barracks -> Pikeman.
Boston - Courthouse -> Harbor.

(8) 1280AD
Nothing.

IT:
Ankorage - Granary (via forest chop) -> Lighthouse.
New York goes stinky.

(9) 1290AD
Nothing.

IT:
Astronomy comes in. Time to trade for health and happiness.
We entered the Renaissance era, but I forgot to CNTL-V the picture into my photo editing software.

(10) 1300AD
Research is st to Paper, due in 3 turns.
We stink. No. We REALLY stink. Most of our cities are submerged in green gunk. Maybe there's a tech that allows the citizenry to wash their underwear. Or maybe I should just go ahead and trade a few things...
Would you believe it? No one has any resources to trade, or they will not trade them to us.
Victoria does give us Guilds, World Map and 10 gold for Astronomy. Best I could do.
This actually turns out to be quite useful, since it shows us all of tha Aztec, Arab and English territories, and quite a bit of the Mongol land.

Notes:
Washington will grow this turn. It is already at -3 health, so it's up to the next leader whether it grows, or is set to max production. I think it should crank out military for a while, so we're not seen as an easy target.

There is a Caraval in Aztec lands with a Missionary on board. He should head to the Aztec capital.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1300B.jpg

There is a missionary under this Chariot near Denver. He should board the next available Caraval (two are heading back after their successful circumnavigation).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1300C.jpg

The Tao of Steve - LotR16 - 1300AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1300.zip)

Glad to see the successful circumnavigation! That's quite helpful.

Stinking? Well, that happens. I've dealt with it a lot. Comes from some of my (and others) deforestation efforts, too. Not much to do but build the occasional health-helper (I try to grab things that help other ways, too, like granaries) or suck up the lost food.

With Astronomy in, we could build better boats -- like galleons for shipping 3 missionaries (all we can have at one time-- or is the limit 4?) at once. A couple caravels may well keep up. Galleons might make OK defense, too, though.

Why are we building pikemen for defense? They get no city defense, are strength 6, and cost 60 hammers. Longbows, on the other hand, get a built-in 25% city defense bonus, are also strength 6, and only cost 50 hammers. That's a no-brainer to me. A couple pikes for anti-mounted behavior might be good, but the majority of our defenders should be longbowmen, NOT pikes. This isn't Civ3 any more! :) But, yeah, we need better city defenses here real soon now.

Did Astronomy help our cashflow? As I understand it, it should have opened up overseas trade routes at the city level, which should have increased their value fairly significantly. But I'm not at all sure of my understanding of that particular issue.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Speaker
Arizona_Steve
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW

Arathorn

If I recall correctly, we don't have Fuedalism yet, and Longbows come with Fuedalism. Our gold did go up significantly once Astronomy came in. Might also be due to a number of markets being built on my turn. Can't tell for sure. We are positive @ 80% science though (was negative at the start of my turns).

Sorry, I'm going to be away tomorrow through Sunday (hiking in Yosemite), so you'd better skip me this round.

That puts me up. I hope to get to it tonight, but the next few days are reasonably busy (though not as busy/fun/cold as hiking in Yosemite), too. If I don't get to it tonight, I'll probably need to be skipped, too (or wait for Saturday). We'll see what the rest of the day brings.

Arathorn

I'll switch with you and play tonight if you like, Arathorn. Just let me know.

Thing is, it's either tonight or not until, Saturday night, probably, late, or, more likely, Sunday. So, we'll see how late our "dinner plans" go tonight -- I'm hoping only 9:00 or so, so I can hopefully play tonight, but we'll see.

Thanks for the offer. I may take a swap, though, if I can't get to it tonight, and then I can still play over the weekend. I'm a bit confused by our family plans for the next few days. They've changed about 50 times (literally) in the last week-and-a-half, and I'm not sure I'm up-to-speed on the latest iteration. I still have hopes for tonight, though. Only one thing tonight (I think). Unless that midnight Harry Potter viewing is still on, but I don't think so....

Arathorn

(0) 1300 - City review -- all cities were set to max food, which would be cool, except for the fact that many of them are at max happiness, so that a new citizen would just sit around angrily eating food and not helping at all. I put them to work on different plots or specialize them. We don’t want to grow into unhappiness. A few builds are changed, too. SF is building a market, but we’re running 80% science. An observatory will give much better returns for the hammer investment. It’s swapped over. Scottsdale, for reasons unknown, had a citizen specialist! It has plenty of room to grow, so he’s put back to work. I don’t understand that one at all. If shields were the priority, a plains forest could have been worked, still giving growth and giving 2 shields (errr…hammers) instead of just 1. I also note longbows are available in the build queue. I will complete the scheduled pikemen (because a few are useful), but will concentrate on city-defending longbows for the military part of my builds.

Diplo front -- not much going on. Nothing to buy and people don’t have enough gold to pay for what we might be selling. Monte is becoming less happy with us all the time.

Civics front -- we have a number of new governments and aren’t making use of them. I put us into a Caste System Bureaucracy for better results. I’ll pay one turn anarchy for those abilities. I think it’s worth it.

(I) Vicky comes offering World Map for World Map. Ours is pretty good, but I accept anyway. I want to keep those open borders until we can convince her of the beauty of Taoism.

(1) 1310 - Missionary disembarks in one of Monte’s unpronounceable cities, but he’s not allowed to attempt to spread Taoism. Oh, Monte is running Theocracy. I guess the Missionary will have to go elsewhere. No use attempting to convert Monte right now. We have to find other targets.

(I) Pike/market complete. Longbows started. Observatories will come soon, but a bit of defense is our first priority.

(2) 1320 - Military units assigned to cities, to give them more health to grow a bit. York sees the intelligence of Taoism and converts. More cash!

(I) Washington - Longbow -> Observatory. Hotlanta courthouse -> Observatory.

(3) 1330 - Workers do their things.

(I) NY Longbow -> Longbow. Paper in -- education selected. We want research power! And Berlin is captured by the Aztecs. An AI-AI war? Such things exist? Who knew?

(4) 1340 - Chopping a few more trees. They’re not going to grow. There aren’t enough of them to contribute health to any city. And we can use the shields. And Steveville’s Theater is vetoed yet again, this time for an observatory.

(I) St. John born in Washington. And a Greek scouting caravel appears. I wonder if it has any small units aboard. Oh well. No way for me to know, that I know of.

(5) 1350 - What to do with another Great Prophet? It’s getting late to join him in a city. I don’t see most of Divine Right doing us that much good. Somebody else has had it for a while, so I doubt we’d get Versailles. Our empire isn’t that huge anyway. Save for a GA? That’s what I’m thinking. Some extra hammers to complete our science-boosting buildings would be good.

Not much else to do.

(I) NY bow and again. It’s our defense-providing city.

(6) 1360 - Not much to do.

(I) Active interterm. Monte comes and cancels our Open Borders. Not much I can do about that. Then, Alex shows up and demands Paper. How much do we want people to like us? Alex has Gunpowder and I’d be thrilled to death to trade with him, but, no, we’re not allowed to even ask for Gunpowder. He doesn’t like us enough. I don’t like him enough to give him Paper, but I’m not allowed to make it un-demandable. That’s a privilege reserved for the AI only. Sigh. I don’t like it, but I give it to him. I don’t want an enemy right now.

Washington Observatory -> Missionary. Scottsdale Forge -> Hmmm…courthouse saves 3 but library would give 3 already and more soon. Courthouse leads to FP, but library is cheaper. Library selected.

(7) 1370 - London learns the joy of Tao. Vicky is getting converted, slowly but surely. Science up to 90%.

(I) Mongols cancel our Open Borders deal. We should have been a bit more careful about signing those. There’s no way to maintain good relations with everyone, so we should have picked a few “friends” carefully and signed open borders with them. I tend to do that with people near the bottom of the score pile, as then the need to kneecap a leader doesn’t mean turning on a friend. Oh well…too late now. They hate us already for trading with their enemies and that will never go away.

Washington Missionary and repeat. NY bow and repeat. Boston observatory -> galleon. A semblance of a navy might be nice.

(8) 1380 - Nada.

(I) Washington Missionary and repeat. NY bow and repeat.

(9) 1390 - Another missionary boards a caravel. I was targeting him for Nottingham.

(I) Education -> Liberalism. I don’t know if we’ll win the race, but there are some good civics options there, too. Washington completes our third allowed missionary and begins a university.

(10) 1400 - There’s a missionary waiting in Philly and a caravel almost there. I put one caravel on our east coast if we want to send from there. Science back down to 80%. We might want to upgrade our galley to a galleon for better transportation.

Nearly all cities are now protected by a longbowman. I’d have NY continue to make a lot of bows. A good defense will go a long ways and we really need one now. Two/city, at least on the coast, would seem to make good sense.

Most cities are on commerce-boosting buildings. Philly should work its hill after its current growth, so it gets some hammers in the next century. Most cities are growing. I’m using the Hereditary Rule happiness a TON. We can’t really leave that government any time soon. But some health would be nice (a fishing boat to get the fish by Philly -- maybe from Boston -- would be a good idea I should’ve done. It‘s worth one food in every city in our empire. It‘s stupid to have waited this long).

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin

Arathorn

More notes/comments:

- The missionary SE of Philly doesn't have a boat to go to England and won't anytime real soon. He should maybe go convert Anchorage. Any city with Taoism is money in our pocket.

- We should start thinking/talking about how we want to win this. We're currently in a fairly dominant position. I don't have enough experience to predict whether that will last without action on our part. I tend to think it would, but it might be nice to verify, with a cruise to a space ship victory or something. We're not clear-cut tech leaders, so it might be harder than I think. Or we can go a-conquering, in which case we should be starting to think about a foe. Diplo is another choice, too, of course.

- I do think more commerce-boosting buildings are the way to go for a while, though, in most cities. Let NY provide our defense and everybody else research. We should decide where to put Oxford U. I tend to think Hotlanta will be our highest commerce producer going forward. I just don't know if it can make a university and Oxford in the next 60 turns or not. Someplace less optimal but better able to produce might be better.

- Boston is getting health benefit from its forests. The key numbers are 3, 5, and 8. Boston has 3. Nobody else has that many, so I'd chop mercilessly.

Arathorn

I downloaded it last night but forgot to say "Got it." Will play tonight.

1400AD (IT): Swap Boston over to a work boat before the galleon. Connecting fish will be worth 2 food in of our coastal towns which have harbors and 1 food in the rest. Send one missionary toward the caravel waiting near our east coast.

IT- Taoism spreads to Steveville.

1410AD (1): Speed up the fishing expedition by trading an extra gold resource to Victoria for fish. I'll still connect ours for the food in Philadelphia. It's no cheesesteak (mmmm, cheesesteak), but it will have to do.

1420AD (2): Land missionary in England.

1430AD (3): Missionary boards boat on east coast and heads toward the other continent.

1440AD (4): Finish Liberalism (most expensive) and take Nationalism as our free tech. New York starts the Taj Mahal for the free golden age. Start Printing Press as our next tech, for the boost in villages/towns, of which we have many. Democracy and the Emancipation civic is the next logical step to further increase our science. Spread Taoism to Hastings. Set up a fishing expedition near Philadelphia.

1450AD (5): Workers do their thing. Missionaries do theirs. I just hit enter.

IT- Saladin shows up and demands gold, which I of course refuse.
[There was supposed to be a picture here, but it didn't work for some reason...]

Why is it that he can demand it of us but we can't demand anything of him. "I just don't like you well enough," he says. Do you think I like you, Saladin? If you want gold, trade me Ivory for it. Otherwise, piss off.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Saladin2.jpg

1460AD (6): Philadelphia has hit its happiness limit, but is now making tons of food (from the fish), so I shuffle another warrior up there for mp.

1470AD (7): Spread Taoism in Nottingham,so we have England pretty well covered. Reaching all the Aztec cities should be our next goal. Alexander will trade us Gunpowder, but all we have to trade is Education, which is worth approximately 50% more than Gunpowder, so I hold off. We have no immediate need for it anyways.

1480AD (8): Move along, nothing to see here...

1490AD (9): Printing Press in and we start Constitution.
http://http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_PP.jpg

Here is a before and after shot of our finances. If you build a lot of cottages (like I do!), then Printing Press is a key tech to reach.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_Before.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_After.jpg

24 extra commerce per turn is nothing to sneeze at!

1500AD (10): Spread Taoism in Sparta. Montezuma is no longer Taoist. He was at the start of my turn right?

Notes:
I've left a few units on GoTo. :nono: I know, bad. It's just the missionary going to Philadelphia and the galleon going to the other continent. I left the Great Prophet active in Washington to remind the next player that he is there, but we are saving him for another golden age.

Highly Detailed Wrath--T-Hawk Style
Taj Mahal will finish in 7 turns.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_-_GP.jpg

With the two artists I have hired, at 42 GPPpt, a great person will be born in Washington on the same turn Taj Mahal is completed in New York. The odds are 2:1 against a great prophet, so in essence, we are facing a flush draw. If our hand holds up, we're looking at a 16 turn golden age. They can be piggy backed, and it doesn't matter which order you do them in (so no need to postpone Taj Mahal a turn until we have the two GP). If the pRNG gives us another great prophet. :rolleyes:

We might want to trade/research Banking before the GA, so we'll have something worthwhile to build with our cities. Then again, we also want to head to Democracy for the good civics. Decisions, decisions. Civ4 is so much deeper than Civ3, where there was usually one true path(TM)--not to be confused with Three True Outcomes (http://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=724).

This game is won. Let's finish it as quickly as we can and start a new one. I think Space is going to be the quickest/easiest route. At some point however, we should make sure to upgrade our military, to make sure nothing funny happens. At the least, we should make a strong navy.

Tao of Steve (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1500.zip)

Converting Montezuma to Taoism will have to wait until he changes his religion Civic. He's in Theocracy now. That means no spread of any religion but the state religion. So, we should find a different second target. Each missionary helps the economy a little bit, though.

Space sounds find to me. We need to make sure to keep the tech presuure up and have a few hammer powerhouses for pieces. I'm not completely certain it's a slam dunk, but it seems quite reasonable/easy to me.

Trading for fish was fine, but unless we can trade our new fish on, we should cancel that deal. No sense helping too many others unnecessarily! :) No 20-turn minimum in Civ4 to worry about!

Roster:
Arathorn
Speaker
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck

Arathorn

Converting Montezuma to Taoism will have to wait until he changes his religion Civic. He's in Theocracy now. That means no spread of any religion but the state religion. So, we should find a different second target. Each missionary helps the economy a little bit, though.
I don't know why I said Montezuma. For some reason I thought he was one of our allies. Was he at the beginning of my turns, or am I totally imagining it?:confused:

I'm confused by that comment, Speaker. Last I knew, we had Open Borders with Monte, but it doesn't matter, because his State Religion isn't Taoism and he's in Theocracy. The rest doesn't matter.

As we choose a second target for spreading our religion, we need to be aware of Open Borders AND their religion civic. That's what I'm saying.

Arathorn

I think I've lost my mind. Montezuma is no one's friend. If he were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and .....

Playing now...

(0) 1500AD:
Speaker has suggested a Space Race victory. This would give us a chance to work through the tech tree, especially as I have not got around to completing a solo game at this point (I often quit when I've won, or if I do something really dumb). To this end, I will go through our cities and try to eke out a little extra commerce, and get more science buildings up and running.

New York - switch to avoid growth as it's at it's happy limit.
Boston - set to avoid growth, but can grow by 1 before hitting the happy limit. Avoid growth switched off.
Philidelphia - at happy limit. Set to avoid growth in case I forget to re-check.

IT:
Washington - Taoist Missionary -> Courthouse
Boston - University -> Taoist Pagoda

(1) 1505AD:
One missionary boards a Caraval. Looks like Greece is getting the Missionary bomb right now, so that's where he'll go. There's also a galleon heading somewhere. I'll see where it ends up.

IT:
Anchorage - Library -> Forge.

(2) 1510AD:
We meet Germany.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1550A.jpg

They're way behind on tech, and judging by Munich being in Aztec hands, looks like they caught the losing end of a war or two.
The Galleon has stopped and will head somewhere, either Saladin, Bismark or Alexander. Will check their civics first though.
Saladin (and Montezuma) are running Theocracy, so no dice there.

IT:
Nada.

(3) 1515AD:
Yawn.

IT:
Alexander offers us Gunpowder and 70 gold for Education. We take it.
Washington - Courthouse -> Hermitage.
Looks like Bizmark will be out of business soon, as Hamberg is captured by the Aztecs.

(4) 1520AD:
Nada.

IT:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1550B.jpg

Banking is selected.

(5) 1525AD:
Do we go to Representation or stay in Monarchy? We can lose one turn now, or lose a turn in our golden age. Revolting now would delay the Taj Mahal by a turn. I'll be pissed if we lose it. However, we'll lose more via golden age production, so I will take the risk. Revolt now.

IT:
The Germans are destroyed.

(6) 1530AD:
We adopt Representation.
Check for angries, but none are found. Taj Mahal is due in 2 turns. Definite speed-up in research noted on Banking.

IT:
Steveville - Observatory -> University.

(7) 1535AD:
Another quiet turn. Workers are building new deal style roads in the absence of anything better to build.

IT:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1550C.jpg

Replacable Parts selected. And...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1550D.jpg

The representation gamble pays off and our golden age begins. Observatory selected.
Thespis is born in Washington.

(8) 1540AD:
I check out Thespis, and find that he's a Great Artist. Following the recommendations, he's combined with a Great Prophet to tack another 8 turns of golden age production onto the current golden age.

IT:
Washington - Hermatage -> Bank
Hotlanta - Harbor -> University

(9) 1545AD:
Call up Montezuma, who has silks available. He wants horses, but I offer him rice instead. This game is not won yet, and I think we may have to take a chunk of his land to slow him down. Don't want to give him better military now, do we?
Wines go to Victoria in exchange for gems.
No tech trades available. Saladin has a couple that he won't trade with us.

IT:
Alexander calls, wanting horses for furs. It'll help him hold off Montezuma for a turn or two, so I accept the deal.
Scottsdale - Library -> Courthouse

(10) 1550AD
Unload missionary at Sparta and move him to Athens. Then curse as I find out that Alexanda has switched to Theocracy. The good news is that Montezuma has switched to Organized Religion.
I offload a couple of Missionaries, as it will be quicker for them to hike into Aztec lands.

Special Offer! The Tao of Steve - Now with free Golden Age! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR16_AD-1550.zip)

[b]
I check out Thespis, and find that he's a Great Artist. Following the recommendations, he's combined with a Great Prophet to tack another 8 turns of golden age production onto the current golden age.
:goodjob: Perfectly executed highly-detailed wrath. T-Hawk would be proud.

No unhappies when we switched out of Hereditary Rule? Really? That surprises me. Something doesn't make full sense to me. Oh well. I'll take it. Representation is definitely better economically. Let's take our Golden Age and just run away with this -- all the techs in the world.

We should maybe see if Vicky will convert to Taosim. That would improve our relations a fair bit. Then we could maybe give her some military techs and sic her on Monte, so we don't have to leave our island paradise. Something to consider, anyway.

I do question building banks. What's our tech rate at this point? Universities and observatories are our top priorities. Banks only help gold commerce, and our rate there is like 10% or so. It's all about research at this point. Getting our pop up, particularly in the seaside cities which can't grow too fast, is also quite important. Let's not sacrifice population for much of anything.

And keep spreading Taoism for the visibility and the added cash.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Speaker
Arizona_Steve
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW

Arathorn

No unhappies when we switched out of Hereditary Rule? Really?
Surprised me a bit too. Maybe there's another bug there.

I do question building banks. What's our tech rate at this point? Universities and observatories are our top priorities.
Hmm. Am I getting confused with Civ 3 again? My expectation was that science was derived from gold, so the more gold, the more science. Besides, I seem to recall that the city building the bank already had it's university and observatory.

I got it. Will play tomorrow and/or Wednesday.

0) 1550AD - Aiieee! Information overload! Suddenly the world is full of foreigners!

City examination. Change our priest citizen specialists into scientists in line with our tech focus. Turn off avoid growth in Philadelphia now we have the extra happies from trade deals.

Move a citizen onto Philadelphia's only decent production square, and promote forge ahead of library.

Fiddled a bit with citizens at various cities, to improve production, and ended up putting all the citizen specialists back to work now that we have some extra happies and can grow a bit. Is it ever worthwhile running specialists in cities that are not growth-limited?

IT: Philadelphia, Washington, New York grow.

Replaceable Parts done. Start on .. umm. I ponder Rifling, to get rifles, but we don't seem to have any gunpowder (maybe because, as I realize later, gunpowder doesn't exist in the world of Civ IV). Okay, let's go for Democracy, and see if our emancipated citizens can spread jealousy and unhappiness through the world!

1) 1555AD - start on some lumbermills in protected forests around Boston. Caravels explore. Missionaries head for .. where .. *ruffles papers* .. ah, I see mention of missionary work in Aztec lands. Quick talk with Monte to arrange an Open Borders agreement, and missionaries are on the way.

IT: Washington finishes Bank, starts .. hmmm .. Colosseum (since nobody seems to like me building Theatres!)

New York finishes Observatory, starts Grocer.

Boston finishes Taoist Pagoda, starts Grocer.

How did we manage to build a Taoist Pagoda with only having 4 of the required 6 temples?

2) 1560AD - a missionary brings the glories of Taoism to Tlaxcala [party]

IT: Boston grows.

Denver finishes Harbor, starts Aqueduct.

Anchorage finishes Forge, starts Observatory (science is good!)

3) 1565AD - missionaries spread Toaism in the Aztec towns of .. err .. Berlin and Munich.

Workers start to chop the last remaining forest around New York.

IT: Washington finishes Colosseum, starts missionary.

4) 1570AD - time passes, first lumbermill completed.

IT: Hotlanta, Scottsdale grow.

We invent Democracy! Now go for Rifling.

Washington finishes missionary, starts the Statue of Liberty.

5) 1575AD - not going to revolt while still in Golden Age. We are still in Golden Age, right? How do I tell?

San Francisco goes to temporary starvation to finish its university faster.

IT: New York finishes Grocer, starts University.

Scottsdale finishes Courthouse, starts Harbor.

6) 1580AD - time passes.

IT: Washington grows.

7) 1585AD - Washington starves and runs a priest specialist to save a turn on the Statue of Liberty build (so that's one reason for running a specialist). Thanks to having a granary, it won't actually shrink before the statue finishes.

IT: Denver grows.

We discover Rifling, start research on Chemistry, since pretty much everything beyond Rifling needs it.

Boston finishes Grocer, starts missionary.

8) 1590AD - time passes, missionary sets sail for Aztec lands.

IT: Saladin comes calling and offers Economics and 30 gold for Liberalism. 30 gold seems to be his entire treasury. At least, it's the most I can ask for in the trade window. Hmmm. I think we need Economics, and if he goes to free religion we can presumably start on converting him. Okay, I accept his offer.

Boston finishes missionary, starts another. Phildelphia finishes library, starts aqueduct.

9) 1595AD - checking possible trades, I find Victoria would be willing to convert to Taoism in exchange for Liberalism. I've no idea how useful that would be -- she's already friendly with us -- so I leave it for now.

IT: Steveville grows.

San Francisco finishes University, starts Grocer.

Denver finishes Aqueduct, starts observatory.

10) 1600AD - that's it! I resign!

Roster:
Arathorn -- SKIPPED
Speaker -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Reagan -- on indefinite skip -- will expect an update after the patch!!
Jaffa Tamarin

So...I can't even install the game on the in-laws computer. Freezes at the same place the install on my laptop died. Makes me suspect the disk is bad. I'll be returning to a store once I can, but that won't be until after this weekend. Skip me until Sunday. :( I hope the withdrawal symptoms aren't too bad.

Arathorn

Skip me until Monday. I'm at my parents' house with a 6-year old computer. I didn't even bother to bring Civ4 with me.