[Alneyan]

About Zen: he has expressed interest in joining the game, but didn't give any nation preference. So, he is still in the "top three nations" list (at the beginning of the thread), but not in the "who plays what nation" list (for the time being at least).

I will likely set up the independent nation, or give a full explanation on how to do it. Basically, they will have an unconnected province, so their Dominion won't spread (and vice versa). Even if the province was connected, Dominion kill would require active work from the players, and the independents would probably retaliate then.

Getting the gems will imply heavy use of the Wish spell, which will become a nation-only spell for part of the game (the first ten turns or so). Wish will then cost *no* gem and will only require Astral 1. If possible, the independent nation will start with thirty or so Astral mages, allowing them to cast no fewer than 30 visa wishes on turn 1, so they will have a lot of virtual astral gems.

Building up the PD will either be part of a mod (highly unlikely if memory serves), or will be done the hard way, with the independent nation giving gold for that purpose (and increasing PD themselves). PD 100 would cost 5000 gold, so that would be a nice number, avoiding any mistake like "how much gold can I actually use?". Again, the money will be gained via alchemy, probably by picking an Alchemist Pretender (with an increased alchemy value, if possible) and wishing for the Alchemist's Stone. That should give 50 gold per fire gem or so => 1250 gold per visa wish, and some more alchemy will be possible.

Unfortunately, I do not believe there is any actual modding command allowing to do the above, so workarounds seem to be necessary. That will mean some setup work for the independent nation in the first few turns, but it will no longer be necessary afterwards.