I like astral magic too. Starting with the elegant star fires, ending with mass domination. The way this magic has to either kill or control your enemies is almost aesthetic
Truper :
Arcoscephale is rather brutal when it fields an army. Why dont you try to mix elephants and hypaspysts? Satisfaction guaranteed.
The hoplites are very tough, and dont cost much. They are produced slowly, but as they have a very high quality/cost ratio, this allow you to gain power relatively to most nations, as time passes.
Psitticine, you never talked about the themes of Pythium and Arcoscephale. Would you care to throw some words about them? I suppose there is at least one evil theme for each?