the most interesting info form my testing is :
for reanimations pan cw is extremely simple minded .
you just need to summon carrion lords and totally ignore carrion centaurs + carrion ladies . they have a lower RoI at least in one area :
code:
costs max reanimations/month rp
centaur 10N 1 0
lady 16N 2 3/4/6
lord 25N 3 5/6/8
code:
leadership (c,u,m) magic hp
centaur 10/35/10 U 24
lady 10/45/5 NUU 15
lord 10/80/15 NNNUUU 53
legend : leadership : c = common = normal troops
u = unholy
m = magic
max reanimations/month = unholy priestlevel too
rp = research points . i wrote 3/4/6 and 5/6/8 because you are forced to take at least magic 1 with carrion woods . so base rp for lady + lord are 3 / 5 , 4 / 6 are their rp at magic 1 and 6 / 8 at magic 3 scale .
so while the carrion ladies have give the same roi on research + reanimation ( negligible better : 3 reanimation / 6 research for 24 nature gems compared to 25 for the carrion lord ) their physical fragility makes them worthless compared to the carrion lords.
you need nothing else than carrion lords . they are the best leaders for your hordes too ( can cast puppet mastery ) . their high hps , recuperation and "undeadness" which gives them poison immunity make them unkillable by unequipped assasins early game . because of recuperation they are immune against seeking arrow too and if they got a chest wound it well be gone soon thnx to recuperation .
they have mr of 18 so they are hard to kill by soul slay etc. , anything with mr saves .
this high mr makes it very unlikely that they decay by a bane spider assasin hit . so even these machaka assasins can't kill them unequipped .
if you give them 5 carrion beast guards and script them they are even unequipped unkillable by every expect the most high end equipped assasins .
i am no expert with province target spells but afaik evo 9 flames from the sky is the strongest killer spell .
iirc i read in an old thread that there a damage throw is done too .
if that's true you would need several flames from the sky at once to kill totally unequipped carrion lords .
so a basic pan strat is really simple minded . each time you can afford summon a new carrion lord .
given the many points you get by pretender design you can either make a strong vq or an almost as strong rainbow as ermor .
if you sitesearch with that one you will have a moderate gem income , something a low top 5-8 ranking . simply put every nature gem in carrion lords .
research is a problem i strongly recommend taking magic 3 . you still will be always one of the Last 3 in research rankings for a long time .
nothing to worry about because you are the least research dependant nation in the whole game .
if you go in late early / early midgame on conjuration 6 you get spectres .
you don't need to worry about sc's as much as other races . with a critical mass of mandragoras / carrion beasts you can take out almost every early-midgame sc .
against pretender sc's use carrion beasts + your own pretender .
you still have to worry about banishment / undead mass desctruction spells but not as bad as ae ermor . while almost every ashen ae ermor fodder freespawn even dies on a single banishment you have 2 advantages :
-puppet mastery increases the ap of most of your carrions ( mr negates iirc ) and some of them are already quick . so positioned foremost the quick ones will reach enemy in first round and the great mass in second round .
-a few of your freespawns/reanimations are undead carrion elephants . they are like free behemoth and have almost the same stats , only slightly weaker .
they are size 6 tramplers . because they are undead they have so high morale that they never rout . if you don't fight sc's but hordes of enemy mages you could place several small squads of them foremost . hopefully they attract most undead mass destruction spells and your other carrion beasts can reach the front quite unharmed .
with 94 hp they should survive about 5 wither bones . hopefully then combat is finished victoriously for you already .
mid - late game you can include in your main armies sc-crippler banelords and the like .
i haven't tested this so far but i think it will work quite fine .
so pan cw is very strong but it needs to be left alone in early game .
against norfleets drive by seraphine strat you almost can't protect when on the offensive early-midgame 
so try to Nap with caelum early game and backstab later 
main weaknesses of pan cw are :
-slowest research at least early - midgame
-similiar to ermor but a bit more moderate : gold shortage
-very hard to get blood because of killer dominion and slowest research of all nations
-no easy access to clams if you don't find indy w2+ mages . then spectres are most probably your best deal for that .
-bad very lategame race on maps >200 provinces because of the hard access to blood / clams and because of hard access to astral mages . so while you are on the advance no protection for your army against flames from the sky , mass ghostriders and the like . so others can teleport/astral level in while you almost can't do that .
conclusion : pan cw is the second undead race , has worse research than ermor but on the other hand doesn't share some of ermor's weaknesses ( gold shortage , death gem shortage , AE : fragile freespawns/reanimations , no vq , easy to kill through early rush ) . perhaps not the most competetive , but very straightforward nation . expect on faerun and other 300+ province maps you have good winning chances .
i like 2 things most with them : the carrion lords and their undead status . no need to worry about bad events ( 50% pop killed ) or about being ermors earlygame neighbor 
.
with your sc pretender and your carrion beasts you should be able to give some others a surprise (expect extreme experts like norfleet / graeme dice / stormbinder etc. ) .
[ July 30, 2004, 22:56: Message edited by: Boron ]