Dahurian

Well Frogboy asked for it, so here is one way to beat the AI on version 1.06. First, pick a meditative sovereign so that you can always research spells. Two, ignore all spells other than summoning. Third, in level 1 spells, summon your critter and then research level 2 spells, so that you can summon the level 2 critter. Pretty soon, you have a wilding, a fire elemental, a golem, a familiar all in one mobile strike force. Level them all up by beati

Pressing "c" on the keyboard centers the map on the sovereign but you can't consistently do this with cities. Selecting the city while zoomed out and pressing 'c' does not center. At a specific zoom level, sometimes it works. I've set up four different games and the same non-centering occurs.

Ckessel, Your reaction to the Fionovar Tapestry is not unique. Several other readers have also mentioned that they had trouble immersing themselves in it. The key for me, was that it was a telling of a story that was conscious that it was a telling of a story. I thought it was a good attempt to apply the Hero with a Thousand Faces idea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces) to a story. I think for this book, where and when you read it is

I normally divide my fantasy into seriously good stuff and seriously good schlock that doesn't challenge you too much. Under schlock, one could do no better than L.E. Moordesit's series on the Saga of Recluse. It is not your normal sword/sorcerer stuff but I think that it has a good treatment of the interplay between static and chaotic forces in our lives and how any one person needs to balance them in their lives. The good guys always win and our interpred hero is well...