I would rate the Pans one of the 3 best national combat mages .
Spells :
-Eagle eye
-summon earthpower
-weapons of sharpness
-petrify
-charm
-mass regeneration
-relief
-swarm
-mass protection
-blade wind
-invulnerability
-legions of steel
-strength of giants
With F pick : Magma eruption
With S pick : Gifts from heaven
With A pick : Rain of stones
That enables you to choose the "right" battle spell for almost any situation .
Rituals :
-Globals : GoH , Mother oak and Haunted forest can be cast with only 1 Nature booster , with random earth pick + earth boots + blood stone you can cast Forge of ancients .
-Earthmagic : gives you mainly mechanical men and iron dragons with random earth pick + 1 earth booster
-Blood magic : X-breed + dark vines can be useful , furthermore in midgame you have the option to forge blood stones
-Nature magic : Lamia queens to give you access to death , firbolgs as thugs , Ivy kings , Vine ogres and fairy queens for air , coatl for astral .
Finally with a F pick you can forge fever fetishes .
Research can be done relatively easy for both normal + new age pan with magic 3 + dryads . That is 6 rp for 110 sacred gold creatures .
Don't take turmoil , i did it in sp a few times but the maenads are really bad and don't even fulfill their role as fodder good enough .
I still would only play pan cw in mp because i haven't found a god design for them yet that pleases me . So far the really expensive Pans have frightened me off . 23.33 upkeep per Pan is horrible
. So even with 1500 gold income you could only pay the upkeep for about 60 Pans if i would use my money almost solely for them .