Situation Assessment: The first thing that I notice is that there are no barbarians!
This is surely a testament to SW's whack-a-barb abilities. Unfortunately, he was forced to pull our fog busters back to defend the empire. I will need to get those back in place ASAP.
Unfortunately, we are fairly weak in the military department. We have only 5 Archers and 3 Axemen at our disposal. Another Axeman is due in 2 turns. My guess is we are going to need to double our forces before we are truly safe from the barbarians.
The year is 350AD and we have only 3 cities.
We have a settler in the queue but it is not due for another 19 turns. Our lack of cities is probably our weakest point at the moment. A review of our cities shows that health is also an issue. Mecca is currently at -2 health, while both Medina and Damascus are only at max health. Not sure if this is a bug or what, but I thought that forest were +0.5 under the new patch. I count 7 forests in Mecca but it is only getting +2 health; shouldn't it be +3? Mecca is also at max happiness.
Our cities have a lot of unimproved land and we have only 2 workers. One worker is building a stone quarry at Medina. He needs 8 turns to finish. The other worker is building a 7 turn farm on the flood plains at Damascus. We clearly need more workers! These guys working individually take way too long to do anything. Yet there is too much to do to put them into a single work gang.
Financially, we are in good shape. We have 53 gold in the treasury, and we are generating +1gpt at 90% on the slider. And that is with working only 1 of our 2 gold mines. We are paying 5gpt for city maintenance and 4gpt for civic upkeep. The civic upkeep is mainly the theocracy civic that we are currently running.
We are currently researching Philosophy, which is due in 19 turns. Our 3 cities are generating 48bpt at the moment. I'm not sure that I agree with the Philosophy decision. We currently have 60 beakers invested and I would sorely hate to lose that investment. With 14 turns of research, we could get alphabet and literature to build the Great Library. Researching Machinery (18 turns) gets us on the road to Banking and Gunpowder. I would probably lean towards Paper, though. It would take 13 turns, but would open up Education and Printing Press. Those 1/2 price Universities will be nice. Unfortunately, nothing that I could choose would have an immediate impact.
Overall, I think we are in bad shape. We have more needs than we have the ability to fulfill those needs. We need more cities, more workers, more troops, more health, more beakers, and (eventually) more money. Maybe I'm nuts or maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that we are suffering from lack-of-plan-itis. After all, we still don't have a plan for our 3 culture cities.
Objectives: I'm really not sure where to begin. I'm thinking that our lack of production is directly related to our lack of cities. I should probably use Medina and Damascus for Settler factories and continue to pump troops out of Mecca. If the new cities are used as Worker pumps, then those workers can hook up the health resources that would allow us to start growing population again.
Ok, then. Settlers and troops will be my priorities. I'll try and get the fog busters back up and whack any barbs that get too annoying.
Turn 0 - 350AD The research decision was a tough one for me. I opt for Alphabet and Literature. I'm not sure this was a wise decision, since we currently do not have any spare production capacity for wonder building. Maybe one day soon we will, though.
I attempt to MM Mecca to stagnate the growth. In order to do so, though, means adding 2 turns to research. Not sure I like the tradeoff, so I leave Mecca alone for the moment.
I MM the other cities to stagnate their growth. This shaves a turn off of our research.
Turn 1 - 375AD Damascus completes its Obelisk. I queue up a Settler, due in 11 turns. There is still 15 turns left on the Settler at Medina. I decide to abort the quarry in favor of a forest chop. There are currently 3 forests at Medina, so chopping one should not impact the health bonus.
Turn 2 - 400AD Mecca finishes an Axeman, start it on another. Still no sight of any new barbs. I continue to redeploy our forces on fog busting duty.
Turn 3 - 425AD 
-- the true fog buster!
IBT: Taoism has been founded in a distant land. Based on the religion screen, I had assumed that we had the tech lead. Now I'm not so sure. I really hope that AI isn't making a beeline for Democracy. I'm not sure if the emancipation penalty would effect us since we don't have contact yet.
Turn 4 - 450AD Mecca finishes another Axeman, start it on yet another. We've used up all of our overflow, so this one will take 3 turns. By firing our Priest, I can get it back down to 2 turns. If it wasn't for the -2 health, we could still have our Priest and our production.
The forest at Medina has been cleared, and Medina is still at max health. However, the settler is now due in 7 turns.
Turn 5 - 475AD I put our Medina worker back on quarry duty. Interestingly, he picks up right where he left off.
Turn 6 - 500AD Yet another Axeman. I queue up another one and hire the Priest back.
Turn 7 - 520AD Alphabet is now learned. Literature will be due in 5 turns. We picked up another turn on the research, somewhere. The farm at Damascus is now complete, shaving a turn off of the Settler being trained. Both Settlers are now due in 4 turns. I task the worker to complete the road between Mecca and Damascus.
Turn 8 - 540AD Mecca builds our 7th Axeman. I figure we could use another Archer for city defense, since we have 2 Settlers coming pretty soon.
Turn 9 - 560AD We've got so many units outside of our borders on fog busting duty that our unit supply costs have ticked up to 1gpt. We're now breaking even, thanks to our Priest.
Turn 10 - 580AD Mecca completes the Archer. I send the Archer down to Damascus to meet up with the Settler. I queue up another Archer.
Our empire, as it stands today:
I've pushed back a lot of the fog; but there is still quite a bit out there, especially in the south. And best of all, no new barbarians. Only the barb city, defended by 2 Archers, in the NE remains.
We now have 6 Archers and 7 Axemen. Note that I did not promote any troops. If we want to take that barb city, we may want a sword or two.
Financially, we are doing alright. But that is probably going to change with these new cities.
There will be 2 Settlers trained next turn. Do we want to stick with the original dot map or draw up another one?
Literature will be complete in 2 turns. I'm thinking the Great Library is looking better and better. But, we also need Libraries and Courthouses. I've queued up an Archer in Mecca. He will be trained in 2 turns with some overflow available for the GL. If the GL isn't on the horizon, there are probably better uses for those shields.
One last screenshot. I think this pretty much sums up that we are in last place.
Oh, and don't forget that we are still running theocracy. We won't need this civic once we stop training troops.
Looking at the save game, I can only see maybe one or two viable places for a new pontential city. The coasts directly south of Damascus provide decent commerce and food (with a lighthouse) but a bit lacking in production though. The clams (if you choose to settle a bit further down south) would provide the necessary health for Mecca to grow. The area southeast of Damascus (where the marble resource is located) could be an excellent production powerhouse provided that you use irrigation from the nearby river to farm all the plain tiles.
For some reason, they seem worse than usual to me. Oh, and please do not confuse my ramblings with criticism. I don't want to screw things up for us and that is just my way of organizing my thoughts. If I don't dot my t's and cross my i's before I start playing, I'll lose focus before the 10 turns are complete.
