[Alneyan]

Panther's way requires using a physical Pretender, but works very well, if you feel like taking a few chances. It works fine from turn 1 onwards, and you can perhaps add a couple of magic items to make your Pretender even more fearsome. The biggest advantage of such Pretenders is their very low price, but they will likely be weaker Pretenders in the long run.

The rainbow/SC combination is another way of taking provinces, and starts around turn 5 or so (depending on how quickly you can reach Alteration 2, with your Pretender having at least 20 research points). Even Alteration 2 allows you to do some damage, with spells like Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Personal Luck and the like. Some Pretenders will likely have no trouble taking weak provinces with this setup. Alteration 3 allows to breathe more easily, and can be reached around turn 8: then, most provinces should fall easily to your Pretender. Once you have done your basic research, a province per turn can be taken with your Pretender.

Other setups not relying on a SC Pretender can work well: for example, in another independent 9/Very Hard research game, I went with a bless strategy and started taking provinces on turn 3, if memory serves. This specific example involved Arcoscephale, a Fire-9 Moloch, and a holy-4 Priestess Prophet: ten Heart Companions did very well against most provinces, backed with Fanatism and the Moloch Fire Darts (a great spell when cast by a Fire-9 mage). Weak provinces fell without a loss, while tough provinces (knights) could still be taken with only two or three companions killed. This setup is fairly cheap, and allows for decent scales; it does not give much else besides fast expansion, however.

And you can still do something with regular troops, I think, but I am no expert on national units (I mostly use projectile units these days, with some infantry once in a while, and cavalry once in a blue moon).

Very hard research is the hardest research: researching level X under very hard research is equivalent to researching level X+2 in standard research. For the sake of completeness, level X in very hard research is equivalent to level X+1 in hard research, or level X-1 in easy research. So, for 60 research points, you can go from:
- 0 to 1 in very hard research
- 1 to 2 in hard research
- 2 to 3 in standard research
- 3 to 4 in easy research