[tinkthank]

Well these are some of my views in short:

I love
MACHAKA, because
- they have assassins and spies!! Only Marignon has that adaik
- they dont really lack in any troop: they have great cavalry, albeit VERY expensive, and decent footsoldiers, and archers (although the worst in the game)
- they have most excellent mages!
- forest survival!
Too bad they also have
- all the neato troops are capital only! Argh!
- neither air nor astral -- argh!
- crap-o PD

TIEN CHI S&A because
- flying CMs are one of the best mages in the game
- MoD are great researchers and decent, cheap necros, with SUPER starting spell for them
- good summons
- decent archers!
- great heros
- nice summons as starting spells!
Too bad they also have
- turmoil!

MARIGNON because
- they have assassins AND spies!! whoo hoo! Only Machaka has these too
- they have scary good cavalry
- which are also part of the very good sacred troops
- inquisitors!!
- great crossbowmen!
- decent footsoldiers!
too bad they also have
- no real magical flexibility
- their best units are very expensive and capital-only

CAELUM because
- i love archers!
- cheapo troops!
- GREAT sneaky flying priests, for cheap too!
- great cheap mages!
- super mobility!
- magical weapons!
- almost nothing worth mentioning is capital-only! you can build the best everywhere!
- with cold 3, you can afford high dominion and other scales
too bad they also have
- no exciting sacred unit
- no easily accessible footsoldiers (very high resources)
- no real magical flexibility

I like so much more, too, but these are my reasons. I thus checked the "cool" box for "why", although I suppose that is sort of broad and pretty lame.
I LOVE the stealthy nations too, I just stink at them (I always lose with Pan). I think Man and Van are great too, I just dont have quite as much fun with them, I dont know why.