The AIs are kicking our butts in terms of GNP, but then again, at least 5 of that for 3 AIs is from a Religion's Holy City's Culture. Still, Commerce does seem like it really will be an issue for us in the short term.
T27, 950 BC
Mansa's Skirmisher is NW + NW of our capital
Our Archer arrives inside of City 2
Our Scout makes his way toward the peninsula via the Forests
Timbuktu has reached Size 6! Other Cities in the world have the same Sizes as before...
5
4
6 Timbuktu
3
3
T28, 925 BC
I almost crapped my pants because I saw what I thought was a Panther coming at our Warrior. Instead, it is two Workers.
We complete the Pig Pasture at City 2.
I had expected to find Mansa's capital to the west of his City 2, so I was surprised when the Archer didn't reveal any Cultural Borders that way. I am still not sure where his capital is located, but his Workers have the "angle" of having walked from the north-west, so that's where I have to assume it is located.
Here's a screenshot of our capital area.
Note Mansa's Skirmisher is lurking nearby, but I doubt that he'll attack our City with a lone unit when we have an Archer defender. Likely, his unit is AI_ATTACK, which means that it isn't going to rush to attack our City by itself, nor will it likely rush in and try to pillage all of our Resources. I'm not sure what the AI mission type for pillaging is called, but I'm pretty sure that an AI has to "obtain" that mission while its unit is within the AI's Cultural Borders.
So, we should be safe from that Skirmisher as long as make sure that it doesn't come after one of our Workers.
Here's a view of the area to the north of Mansa's City 2:
We could theoretically declare war on Mansa now, but I don't know if there is a guardian unit nearby for his Workers. I think that an AI unit has to "randomly wander" onto the same square as the Workers in order to act as their defender, but given that they are in the midst of building a Road, it's possible that a Skirmisher is right behind them...
Then again, I think that the Workers will only "get away" from a guardian if they move 2 squares away, which probably isn't likely to have happened if the Workers are in Road-building mode, as the Workers would most likely be moving 1-square-per turn and thus the Skirmisher would have "kept up" with the Workers.
That said, there is a remote chance that the Workers had built the piece of Road that likely* exists to the north-west earlier and just finished a "far move" that "lost" their Skirmisher escort but left their escort nearby.
* Otherwise, how do you get into Road-building mode with zero movement points on a square? For that to happen, you need to have started on another square where you built a Road or else which already had a Road.
If we do declare war, I might have to "make do" with just 1 Archer to guard both our Worker and Settler that will be going toward the Ivory City area, while we leave 1 Archer parked inside of our capital.
Anyway, I'll upload the game now since I'm exhausted and it will probably be too late for me to keep playing before I can get much feedback.
My current inclination is to try and Worker-steal now, but there are minor risks involved.