Let's Play Age of Wonders III: User Input Required

You are an attentive disciple and Warbob Sexlizard will heed your advice. After a bloodless capture, we discover that there are not two gold mines to the north, but no fewer than four - and an additional Magma Forge to boot.


Furthermore, we have discovered a neutral Dwarven outpost to our west.


Do we agree to give some of our gold to these greedy, evil dwarves in exchange for peace, do we declare intentions of war outright, or do we ignore them for now?

There are two things to note - first, paying them for peace opens up the possibility to perform a quest for them in exchange for them joining us. Secondly, we cannot reach their settlement this turn to capture it should we seek to conquer them rather than have them join us peacefully.

Additionally, we have discovered a pair of bandit camps to our east (the little fireplace in the northern part of the image is the southern edge of the second camp).

These camps will spawn roving enemies as the game progresses, which is dangerous to us because Warbob Sexlizard believes in using Warbob Sexlizard's entire army rather than inefficiently having soldiers stay at home.

Shall we finish capturing the remaining gold mines and magma forge (which we will need to build a fortress or outpost to reap the rewards from, barring the closest one), head west to the dwarven outpost, head east to clear out the bandits, or do some combination of the above?