AC starts at 44 so I want to bump it up some.
A quick check shows we need 9 techs for Divine Essence, Engineering and Iron Working are both on the way, so we may as well complete Engineering before we get too much beaker decay. I then complete Iron Working.
As some of Auric's cities are AV cities, we need to keep them, as otherwise it will actually
lower the AC.
I make a quick trade with Jonas before I declare.
He, at least has a friend.
Only ever saw one scout and was able to get peace for cash by then end.
Hyborem has a few techs we can use. I get Code of Laws as well (one of our required techs to Divine Essence and our dragon).
Rantine shows up early.
And checks out as well.
I don't have to worry about razing Jonas' cities.
Another death node planted.
So why aren't things going great then?
We lost some troops (mainly summoned) and the WW is high 6-9 in most cities. This means our finances stink as virtually all cities are unhappy. I switched from Religion to Nationhood (?). Our armies are still fine and both Jonas and Auric are putting up only token efforts now.
Both Auric and Jonas will take peace for tech. We need to with at least one of them. Maybe use the 10 turns to whip out more troops and upgrade existing ones to Iron weapons.
We are struggling financially (negative at 0% but have plenty of cash reserves), so maybe whipping some courthouses might help in peacetime.
AC ended up at 62 and is bubbling along nicely.