[Twan]

About adjusting the game (IF heavy blesses are proven unbalanced even in long games on big maps -IMO a good awaken SC taking provinces since turn 2, a rainbow mage able to complete the nation ability to find/use all gems, an imprisoned pretender with very good scales, may all qualify for an equal long term utility-) another idea : in most cases heavy blesses are only problematic with uber units. Nobody had a problem with a bless strat using subpar cheap units like sacred serpents of C'tis or flagellants, nor with a capital only, slow and ressource heavy unit like heart companions.

So... Why not giving a different holy cost to some units ? If a van is proven 3 times more useful than most sacred units, just give him a holy cost of 3. Then rushes with the best sacred would become impossible (as even with dominion 10 you can recruit only 3 sacred / turn before making a second castle or 10 temples), but an heavy blesses strat stay possible, to give some interessant capacities to weak/ressource heavy sacred (and eventually try a rush strat with them... with good chances of failure) or for mid/long term (if you can spend 3x more time making an army of uber sacred, or if you have access to sacred summons not restricted by dominion).