Thanks for the feedback, Frank!
By "rainbow gems", I assume you mean one of every gem type. I understand it'd be nice to have that, but I decided not to for two reasons:
1a) It would be 7 gems per turn, which would be more than most other nations, so I'd consider it an advantage compared to others for balance purposes.
1b) They do have a big advantage in having all paths on their extremely varied recruitable mages, so they can generally find most or all gem types quickly, and can site search quickly and easily without any magic on a pretender, so the initial deficiency can be made up for quickly.
So what I did was give them "half-rainbow gems" (if you will), where each of the four tribes' strongest gem is in the starting mix (except Garnet's blood, which they can hunt immediately anyway - but they do get their secondary, fire). So I think this is a healthy, interesting, and balanced starting position, without seeming too strong compared to other nations in the unmodded game.
The Amazon Leader is a unit I like, but you're not the first one to be puzzled at the cost versus its abilities. The reason I didn't give them higher leadership was partly thematic, because priestesses and sorceresses are the leaders of Amazonian society. The reason the leaders are so expensive is their sacred status and their fighting skills and stealth. An Amazon Leader with blessings and some magic items can be pretty potent at least against ordinary units, though it's true she's unlikely to reach SC caliber. Comparing to say the TC Prince General at 150 gold and the Sidhe foot leader at 140 gold (two other sacred leaders, which I suppose some players might also disdain), I think her price is in the right ballpark as she is now (or maybe slightly high)... if you were going to use her the way I had in mind... which many players probably wouldn't. That is, I had in mind to use them for their skills as thugs, archers, and leaders of stealth raiding parties, and/or with blessings. So my mistake, I think, was that she has some niches, but her obvious role is as an ordinary commander, for which she seems overpriced.
I also confess that some of the reasons I didn't add a couple more unit types were that if I add any, they won't line up so nicely by tribe
, and that it's so much work for me to create and tweak the graphics.
In general though yeah, I think I mostly agree and would tend to add a general leader who isn't sacred and lacks stealth and such high skills, and who costs a more typical leader cost.
Perhaps what I should do instead is increase her leadership. That way she can still be used for niche roles, but will also be an efficient choice for leading armies around.
PvK