the new gnomish settlement allow to train strong low level units, they are strong enough to tackle on that war bears, with some support...
I researched enchant item, to give some more punch to our heroes..
sadly we can't quite afford yet what I had in mind for the wizard:
since it looks like we're going toward a strong army (since we have few precious offensive spells right now), while I train gnoll swordsmen I'll also expand our food production. According to our surveyor, this place has great potential for a city, despite the danger of the nearby ruins and tower:
now, we can also increment our capital food production, we don't have money problem so we can build some more stuff, like:
and since we have some gold but gold is never enough, our engineers will start building a network of roads between our cities:
since training some swordmen in the small gnoll outpust will take a while, I'll send some chivalry from the capital to the west unexplored territories:
notice the road build in the meanwhile, we're halfway toward the first city!
some raider were intercepted by our chivalry, before they could come in and cause trouble:
(in the upper left angle!)
just a couple of gnolls, dispatched by phantom warriors before they could even reach the chivalry.
A little more exploration and their outpost is found and conquered by phantom warriors:
I just let the horsemen finish them for the experience
but there is no time for that! notice the army of gnolls on south est: they're marching to the war bears.
I'll leave the horsemen up there to intercept potential raiders; but now it is time to conquer the other nature node!