[PB84] Lurkers on a Hill

[Thoth]

It looks to be in a reasonably defensible position.  (at least until I thought about the borders....12+ turns to get control of the inner ring is a huge window of vulnerabliity)

It's ... worse than that; if you want to say 12+ turns, you need a really big emphasis on the "+."  That city is competing for three first-ring tiles with Marching Inland, which has the engineer-rushed MoM (visible in that picture) and has already popped its third-ring borders.  The iron, first-ring to Meddling Kids, will never be claimed culturally as long as Marching Inland exists; it's in MI's BFC, and it's going to hit fourth ring before MK gets to third.  Which means mounted units (and post-engineering, everything) will be able to hit Meddling Kids from the fog at any time throughout the game.

My suspicion is that Tarkeel put that city there as a pure crumple zone plant though:  If MJMD tries a full-scale attack, Tarkeel would rather have a forward city-on-a-hill to lose than let MJMD control that tile and the dyes hill and go after Shatterpoint through those:  It might buy him an extra turn of warning for his real cities.  Of course, if MJMD just razes the city as a "border adjustment," much as he did to Leviathan Wakes, the city just wastes resources for them both - especially if it provokes a larger-scale attack.  And since controlling the first-ring dyes (which without combat will presumably happen ... eventually) would mean Tarkeel could first-strike the flatland MoM city with fast-movers from the fog, MJMD probably does have to erase this city.

I had completely missed that MJMD had a wonder in his border city.     That completely changes the equation.