Well, it took me a few minutes to play and few hours to write it up. I guess I tend to get a bit wordy. My apologies!
Situation Assessment: Wow! This is one brown world. A lot of desert and plains tiles. And then there is all of that tundra and ice up north. The only green that I see is from the flood plains and all of those wonderful grassland forests. First, lets check the F8 screen and see what the RNG rolled for a map. We have a temperate climate with low sea level map. I also notice that the game speed is normal rather than epic -- no big deal. That temperate climate kind of surprises me with this brown map. IIRC, the low sea level implies a higher land to ocean ratio (aka
![[civ3]](/images/smilies/civ3.gif "Civ3 Icon [civ3]")
60% ocean setting).
All of those flood plains will mean health problems. And we only have 3 health bonus' to offset. Boy howdy, the expansionist Spanish are looking like a good civ to pick right about now!
Well, let's see what Saladin can do. Oh wait, we're Arabs ... in a desert ... doh!
Our one city, Mecca, is at size 5. It is maxed out on health and happiness. Hooking up the corn will give us another health point, we still need agriculture for that. Happiness will need to come from a temple, which will require priesthood. We are generating an excess 4fpt, 4spt, and 14bpt. The science slider is at 100% and we have no money in the treasury. Mining will be a critical research to increase our shield output.
We are currently training a worker, which is due in 5 turns. Our research is agriculture, which is also due in 5 turns; although, no beakers have been expended on it, yet. After giving this some thought, folks, I'm not convinced that agriculture is our most pressing need at the moment. We could live with a health penalty more so than the happiness penalty. We would definitely want the farms in place before slavery comes around, though. I see the most pressing needs as priesthood for the temples AND mining.
Without mining, we are not going to build any of the early wonders. And I think we are going to need to think about wonders fairly soon in order to start accumulating GPP prophet points. The prophets will be needed to build the shrines that will finance our empire. This brings up an interesting point that we should probably discuss. Is the capitol going to be one of our 3 culture cities? If it is, then we obviously cannot use it for early wonder production. Technically, the capitol already has a wonder, albeit a national wonder, in the form of our palace. My initial thoughts are to use 3 other cities and use the capitol as a GPP factory.
Objectives: Basically, I need to finish the good work started by my predecessors. Specifically, I need to (1) finish exploring our continent. I would guess that it is 90% to 95% complete. Is it possible that we have this continent to ourselves? After 40 turns, I would think we would know who our neighbors were if we had them. And (2) I need to put that worker to use with some badly needed improvements.
Turn 0 - 2840BC I'm not sure if it is a good idea or not, but I leave research on agriculture. Even though I cannot see the immediate benefit, both Methos and Soul Warrior seem to think it was important enough to mention. I decide to defer to their judgement. I press enter.
IBT: The lion spots our warrior.
Turn 1 - 2800BC Do some exploring and lion avoidance. A humpback is spotted playing off the eastern coast. Our warrior was going to take a photo for his scrapbook, but suddenly remembered that he didn't know what a camera was.
Turn 2 - 2760BC nada
Turn 3 - 2720BC ditto
IBT: I wasn't quick enough to avoid the lion. We had a 35% combat advantage against the lions, but alas it was not enough. Personally, I think my RNG may be faulty!
Turn 4 - 2680BC Down to one warrior, now. Unfortunately, he is at the very northern end of our continent. I doubt we will discover much of anything usefull up here. We do, however, have another warrior, but I leave him on MP duty at Mecca.
Worker and agriculture are due next turn. I MM Mecca to make sure some shields will overflow into the previously queued up warrior. It will now only need 1 more turn instead of 2 to complete.
Turn 5 - 2640BC Agriculture complete. We can research temples for 5 turns or mining for 6 turns. It is a tough choice, since both are sorely needed. I choose priesthood first. Not sure if this is the best decision, though. The worker also completes and is sent to hook up the corn.
I turn the governor back on with the emphasize research option, just to see what it would come up with. How about 16bpt and shaving a turn off of priesthood?
Turn 6 - 2600BC Warrior->Warrior
Our new warrior is sent to explore the unknown SE. Hopefully he won't run into that same lion!
Turn 7 - 2560BC I MM Mecca to complete the warrior in 2. Priesthood still due in 2, as well.
Turn 8 - 2520BC 
IBT: Our northern warrior gets ambushed by a wolf! He survives with 0.1 health remaining! I suspect that I failed to notice at the start that this warrior was not at full strength.
Turn 9 - 2480BC Priesthood complete, I start research on mining. Another warrior is trained and ready to explore. I send him towards the NW coast with the intention of exploring along that coastline.
Rather than starting a temple right away, I decide to train another warrior. I don't think the fella up north is going to make it. After fending off that wolf, he does get a combat promotion that nets him 1.1 health. He will still need 5 turns to heal.
Meanwhile, in the SE we spot lions! Dagnabbit AND doggonit!
IBT: The lion went back into the fog.
Turn 10 - 2440BC We be farming corn! The extra 3fpt of the corn fields means we can go after more shields.
It looks like agriculture was sound advice after all -- glad I didn't hose it up. I'll leave the micromanaging to the next person. Basically, you can have a warrior in 3 and mining in 4, or a warrior in 2 but mining in 5. I looked for warrior 2 and mining 4 but I couldn't find it -- maybe you'll have better luck.
![[offtopic]](/images/smilies/offtopic.gif "Offtopic [offtopic]")
![[c3c]](/images/smilies/c3c.gif "Civ3 Conquests [c3c]")
and I miss playing that way. The Settings/Map drop down box does not have a random option listed for me.
... because that stone looks so nice, but that's such a lousy spot for a city ... maybe 1 tile N. Of course, Mecca might expand culturally so fast that it'll quickly grab it.
)
![[civ4]](/images/smilies/civ4.gif "Civ4 [civ4]")
plague, starting play on a solitary island.
