Whosit
Entropic Knight
I always consider resources to be of utmost importance. Get those first. In this case I meant that instead of building, say a random farm, we should build cottages.
Right.
Kinda @ WIM: I've played so much on Monarch/Emperor difficulty that I cannot shake the desire to actually have a credible defense. I have started a Noble game to try to remind myself what that's like, although unlike in this game, there are Barbarians. If I was running as scant a military as we are in this game, I would have been eliminated.

Also, considering my position in the Imperial Party, I want to crush some skulls, so a bigger military is good for that, too.