[Emelio Lizardo]

Well, you're entirely correct. Earthboots are a fact of life until the smiths gain some levels, then their accuterments should also evolve. Earthblood stone is nice too, until the big rings are widely available. Then the rocks get put back with the research team/gem farm to be milked every few turns.

I find the priests from the iron faith are very valuable for their courage spells, and they smith just as well as the smiths. But the smiths can never get religion as the priests can gain level in magic, and they command more troops.

So in the beginning troop sizes are smaller than with the black commander but that's ok. The spell commanders evolve in time for mid and late game strategies. Which brings up an other issue, don't let your commanders get into melee. If your commanders are slugging critters you're doing something very wrong. I'd rather lose the whole squad than one commander.

I only melee assasins and bezerking, trampling, fast, super critters with god awful fear values. Just for fun I made a sprite into a bezerking trampling 4 point super assasin. Little bugger hasn't failed me yet.

It's only fair to note that at this point it is a struggle to keep the remaining AI alive so I can play with all the toys and summonings. I might have to retreat from some provinces so he can expand and not be wimped out by dominion. A MPG game could have a completely different strategy needs and timing, but I've never done on of those.