I believe that attacking at this point would be premature and ill-advised.
Our regular warrior would likely be no match for their veteran warrior in the forest. And even if we were victorious, there's no guarantee that we could reach the city before they were able to garrison it. And even if we could reach the city in time, attacking it would only serve to raze it to the ground. And finally, we don't have the military available, nor the infrastructure to support a war that far from home just yet.
I also fear that rushing to settle that land to the east would only provoke Gamecatcher to attack us before we are ready to deal with that threat. We should allow them to settle those lands for us, and then kindly take those burdensome cities off their hands once our swordsmen roll off the line. I think we should settle to the north and to the southeast. Then, we can consolidate our holdings by taking whatever cities Gamecatcher has constructed in "No Man's Land".
I suggest that we immediately switch our production to Iron Working. It is the only thing that matters at this point. Drop our science rate to 10% and start accumulating wealth that will be used to upgrade our warriors to swordsmen.
During this time, we should build nothing but warriors while we allow our capitol to grow to size four or so. Then build a worker or two and then back to warriors again allowing the city to grow some more. Wisdom Harbour should be able to produce a settler while this happens so we don't stop growing altogether. Then, after we reach size four for the second time, we commence a Settler, Warrior, Warrior build cycle, which will allow us to continue building our warrior force while allowing us to settle to the north.
The new workers that we would build will allow us to build roads through the mountains to allow our troops rapid advancement to that front in the inevitable event that war breaks out.
Our Military Advisor says that our Military is on average with theirs, and I'm sure that theirs is telling them the same thing. We cannot afford to let their advisor inform them that our military is weak compared to theirs or war will surely follow before we are ready to deal with it properly.
One more thing... all future city placement should be done in such a manner that it provides us with a strategic advantage in the upcoming war with GC. With this in mind, perhaps some surveyors might start locating potential sources of iron.
For now, though, let us switch our research to Iron working and drop the funding to 10%.
It has worked well for him, all he did was make Mounted Warriors and rushed me, and another time Jag rushed me. If we are able to get horses and horseback riding, maybe we could do the same.
