Re: Kailasa
 

n4/e4 aren't that great for Kailasa. They already have pretty good natural access to these paths. So it doesn't open up a lot of new stuff.

s9 is always nice because wish/master enslave casters are nice to have.

You could go with A4-6S9W9 and really have an excellent early expansion. Kill the first player you find that doesn't have great archers. And stay on the offensive the rest of the game. (low air because you can use arrow decoys)

Sure you get the national quickness spell, but that doesn't help the early game, and you need to research thaum 6. Which I don't think has that much synergy with early game Kailasa. (Which imho is dominated by cheap massed sacreds who either get buffed by water/earth/nature or wreck debuffed (nature) troops. Or get blasted by gifts of heaven, blade winds (high air bless is nice if you go all blade wind on their assess)).

After you get some research going (Which ones mainly depends on the other players, but going for alteration is usually not bad. Body ethereal is nice, for the cheap S mages you get. And the cap only E mages can cast a lot of the anti armor spells.

Personally I would research alt 4 (destruction vs heavily armored troops, earth meld vs sacreds/heavy hitters/sc's etc (w9 helps vs friendly fire)). Conj 3 (summon earthpower), thaum 1 (communions), Alt 6 (petrify. Aka, bye bye nief^MSC's) Conj 5, Ghandaharvas.

**** e4/n4. Your sacreds are glass cannons anyway.

Don't get death. Late game you can get the Rudra for easy entry into death. Sure it is conj 9. But you want to max that path asap anyway.

Ps: Legowarrior you should know that you should tell if your game is MP (which you did) and which mods you are using. I generally assume CBM here. Adjust research targets if otherwise.

Re: Kailasa
 

They have a lot of low level astral. High level astral is a totally different weapon. (Also, getting s9 on your pretender stops burden of time from wrecking your master enslave communions).

Re: Kailasa
 

Remember, it's not just about the troops. With Kailasa's lineup of sacred mages and commander summons I think there's a good case for throwing a useful bless their way if it can be done at reasonable cost.

And as far as the sacreds go, I think they may have more staying power than you think. As the game goes on and you can start addressing their weaknesses with things like arrow fend, prot buffs and iron bane to level the playing field with armored troops I think you can end up with quite a solid line. And being able to reduce or eliminate fatigue is very valuable.

I do like the idea of a minor W bless but not W9.

First, there's celestial music. This is a great spell (as far as I know this is the only battlefield-wide quickening spell in the game) and it's availability would make me feel like a W9 bless was wasted points (and of course W doesn't add anything more to magic diversity than EN blesses).

There's another drawback to W9, which is that it will always be on (of course assuming you bless your units) and you will always have the additional fatigue from 50% quickness. There could be situations such as when facing hordes of chaff where you're better off without quickness. Of course if you invest in a minor E bless you'll also be able to better deal with being quickened so that's another point in favor of a light E bless (even more if you go with a W9 bless than if you don't).

Also, regarding your commanders, if you're rushed you may find them to be a better defense than your sacred troops. Since rush attempts typically focus on a particularly strong aspect of a unit if you can neutralize that aspect you can stop the rush cold. With the potential for fire, cold and poison resistance, breath of winter, BE, luck and prot buffs as well as forging low level weapons such as snake bladder stick, eye shield and hero's blade as well as the built-in awe you can meet a lot of different threats. And here being able to get some reinvig without needing Constr. 4 is a real plus.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. You're looking at what maximizes early game strength and I'm focused on what gives the best return midgame.