Ahhh the wise words of the orgahs.

Played a wee bit last night again and the money troubles disappeared in a flash when I took Antioch (as predicted above) and that was with out having trade rights with anyone!

I was a wee bit lucky as I fought an intense battle outside Antioch (even with 3 units of Clibanarii) and afterwards got a "man of the hour" which gave me a unit of CI to add to an already impressive army.

That left a pretty pathetic army inside Antioch and a super-impressive one outside!

I also exterminated Antioch (for public order) and demolished the church building a temple to the great god Z.

However there is still some pretty horrific public order issues. I know that peasents are not good as garrison troops (I dont use them for that anyway). I managed to sneak a wee bit of the army out to take tarsus (again exterminate and buld Z temple). But now it will be quite a few turns of waiting till I can move on. Also if the ERE shows up with any sized army it will be hard to take them out and remain as garrison troops.

Is this usual? The religion thing being used to slow "blitzers" down and let the AI have time to retaliate?