Have a talk with your AI opponent and check his current gold total.  If it's a huge negative value, he's probably got a billion units running around and the delay is just the PC processing them all.

It may not be the same solution, but I ran into similar problems with other TBS games. Because of my low CPU speed I had to turn down the number of opponents. The more they were, the more time I was stuck between turns.

Also, what with the negative billion whatnow?

I have a ridiculous system and i get the same issues with anywhere from 3-8 opponents.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83

8gb Ram 4x2GB Gskill ddr2 800

Nvidia GeForce 465 EVGA 1GB

2x 1TB Wester Digital Black HD's in Raid Stripe mode. Clearing 200 Consistent read 250-300 burst. 150-200 Write Sustained.

Asus P5N-D Mobo Nforce 750i Chipset, Realtek 883 HD Aud. (Asus has gone to shit go MSI, or is it just me?)

Windows 7 X64 Enterprise & 7 X86 Enterprise, Both Legit Full Updates on all hardware and windows updates.

I swear it runs better sometimse on my work comp wich is a amd XP 5000+ 64, wiht Geforce 9500 512mb card and 2gb ram that i use for my POS, and games when im bored.

Is there any reported OS that this game works better on with less glitches, this info would be greatly appreciated, (Awesome game either way i hope the efforts stays up no the tech side and it doesnt flop this is the first game Ive actually paid for in minus 3 other games sc1,sc2,cs pre source & 1.6. don't kill my effort to pay for games this is my first attempt to support a company in ages minus several online games that i listed, and ive been gaming for over 15 years, i even modded my 360 so i dont have to pay for those either. Dont let me down stardock)