[Cheezeninja]

The most successful opening expansion drives i know about are all either bless powered or SC powered. Once you get to alteration 3 there are a few pretender types that can start wiping out weaker (and sometimes stronger) provinces all by their lonesome with the right magic paths. My personal picks for this are the Void Lord and VQ, they both excell at early land expansion because of built in life drain (which helps ALOT with fatigue and even hp). Of course the VQ is exceedingly expensive to take, and the Void Lord is an underwater pretender and tritons would chew him up before he got a chance to raise his shields. A bunch of other pretender can do the early expansion, but they face more risk doing it.

*cough* Niefel Giants do pretty good at stomping indeps without casualties once you have about 5-6 of them plus your starting crew, which you might notice, looking at the charts.. *cough*