Oh, and Palpster, if you wish, you can attach the save to a PM sent to me.

I do not like this game! 200AD and I'm already moribund.

I dislike the fact that cities must be spaced out three tiles. Ridiculous. I also dislike the balance of production in the normal speed games.

Rise and Rule Conquest mod STILL is far better than this pretty crap!

Actually, I have an idea for a mod using Civ4 that I'd like to run by you guys. Actually, two mods.

Tactical Civ4: Map scale is about 3 to 10 km (as in some of the scenarios in "The Operational Art of War" by Matrix Games), and the maps represent fairly small areas (say for example the area around Strasbourg, or the area around Beijing, etc.) and a period of time on the order of 100 years. Units require population to build, and instead of being "destroyed" when beaten, they get routed. This could be represented by having the unit health values be on the order of 10+ and having the combat engine set so that most units can at most deduct 1 health point, maybe up to two if they have special promotions.

Lots of other elements that could be included: stacking limits, reduction of efficiency as stack densities go up, supply, morale, partisans in tiles, etc.

Idea Two: Operational Civ4. This mod would build off of tactical, and could conceivably cover the entire span of human history. Each tile on the Operational Level map would represent maybe a 4x4 or 6x6 set of tiles on the tactical map, with the terrain type represented being the predominant terrain type in the clump of tiles in the tactical map. Not very many other changes, except perhaps to make the balance between tech production rate and game speed better, and to make more techs as in Rise and Rule. Basically, you can cruise along at Opertional level, moving your units as Division Level groups and never even consulting the tactical map, or, if you want to get into tactical level control, you can at any time, give a special command and expand any tile into its tactical map. If you are moving your units into the tile for the first time, you can choose how to split up the division into sub-units and disperse them on the tactical map.