I have a dilemma...

I need help on where to settle and prevent Mongolia from planting a city down before I do and whether to settle on the coast (on the banana tile) or not. I took the noobish leap from prince to king and I believe every decision is crucial to my success...

Any help would be much appreciated

EDIT: I should have posted this in the Strategy & Tips section sorry

You can't see it in the screenshot but the Mongolian border is just at the top edge of the screen so if I settled here I would be plomping a city down right in Ghengis's face

Can you post a pic or two of the wider area?

Settling there just to spite Mongolia is a bad idea.

Nothing but jungle, distant hammers (mostly third ring). Slow growth, slow building. You'll need at least two workers to get it up and running.

The only saving grace is the gems.

Just though it was a great spot cause there's bison, bananas and gems with lots of jungle and coast

And i'm not trying to settle there just to spite Mongolia as i chose this spot way before I encountered them besides i'm preparing to have my new city well defended as i'm building an army

Settle one left of the bananas. Gets you both bananas plus the other resources in second ring. Then manually buy the gems (if it doesn't expand there first) and mine it asap to get the production, lock that in as soon as you hit two population (the bison/twin bananas will give plenty of food).

War, your spear-man should kill Genghis's warrior and you'll get a free worker. Be aware it might make him settle right there should you DOw. Alternatively you could try and herd him away but there's a barbarian nearby.