[apoger]

>I feel at Last somehow at ease with Abysia now, and get something like 1100 gold & 18 provinces at turn 20 (Eye map, indep at 4, 6 impossible AI, all other settings unchanged).

I ran a game to see how well I'd do using the same settings.

I used a red dragon (fire 2, earth 8), order3, prod 3, heat 3, death 3, luck 1, drain 3.

Totally ordrinary game, some ups, some downs. I lost an important army by surprise when Arco showed up with an unexpected army that had 8 elephants, 20 HC, and about 100 assorted junk.

On turn 20: 36 provinces, income 1602.

If I had a bit of luck or had played a shard smarter I probably could have gotten another 20% out of things.