I'm not completely sure why we're building wealth in a couple of coastal cities instead of Galleons? We aren't bleeding money that badly.
Anyway, city MM needs to be looked at, we're running a bunch of useless spies, better to have merchants; we need to whip a bunch of galleons & frigates, then we can declare. Also, we can ferry the troops in the cap the Thaenae, that way we don't have to worry about Frigates too much in that region.