well, i cheat all the time too, but only to manipulate political situations so no power gets annihilated until I do the annihilating. The stones are good, so use them. I usually like to burst out and blitz various towns while they are still weak and haven't started building stacks yet, and destroying them fast till I turn a profit, then settling down. I don't understand how we can sit tight and just build income-generating buildings when you can't even turn a profit that will allow you to keep building income-generating buildings. You wouldn't last past turn 1 that way unless you disbanded some troops.