[RadiantFleet]

I'm a contrarian on Caleum. I typically play with
Dominion 7-8 Order 3 Prod 3 Growth 3 Drain 3 Cold 3
Fortified city and Vampire queen

Depending on my dominion I'll bump up the VQ to 4 death and 4 blood.

I find she does well getting you started, she's cold immune and immortal. Placing the vampires she attracts with mammoths and other caleum units really helps with the routing problems. I tend to aggressively push my dominion out using stealth preaching. I view my dominion as my most important weapon, with the cold enhancing my troops stats, keeping my pretender immortal, and hindering most other unit types. Jotheim can be a big problem, the cheap, fast, good priests tend to cancel out Ermor but Jotheim requires attacking in force to cut their supply lines. Frequently the AI chooses to place Jotheim as a retarded younger brother to Ermor, but when it chooses effect starting picks it can be quite competitive. Abysia is toast after the early game. I can kill its leaders, rendering summer lions ineffective. A mage attacking the rear, casting breath of winter can be devestating.

A big thing I find about Caleum is that you need to build, build, build. The units are cheap, you can amass huge nodal armies in your fortified cities (with give you the supplies to maintian them). An enemy attacks, you swarm him with every unit in range. Then you return to your supply base the next turn when your troops begin to starve. I usually expand my empire with an attack army composed of temple guards, ice clads for attacking the rear, and my pretender. I don't attack a province unless it has at least +1 dominion. Later in the game, I use an arch angel with the ark, and only temple guards set to hold and attack. The ark will destroy an army a hundred or more times bigger if you can stand your ground.

Anyway, some of my random ramblings on Caleum.