I was hoping the rat things would do a bit better. Well, hopefully you'll be able to put up a good fight for someone before you go down.
In other news, perhaps I should not have been so quick to express my happiness with my start location. It seems that heavy cavalry and elephants have been placed strategically to deter me from a brisk expansion. I can kill most of them, but there's the occasional group of heavy cavalry that's just too big and hurts one of my expansion parties too much to continue
Meanwhile, ferrosol, you seem to be doing rather well for yourself.