[Shovah32]

The nature 9 isnt really needed imo, n4 to avoid afflictions would be more than enough and would allow you to take:
Lord of the Desert Sun
f9n4
Dom5
Order 3
Prod 2(aby is resource heavy)
Heat 3
Death 1
Misfortune 2
Magic 1
Dormant

With that set-up your sacreds will be slightly weaker but you will be able to crank them out faster (along with your other high resource troops), will have more gold, wont have mages constantly dying and you will have your god alot sooner (a guy with 90 base health, fairly good base stats, full slots, the ability to cast personal regen and a f9 fireshield is very nice).

Your research (with your pretender to help) should be based mostly in evocation atleast until you reach fireball (for small-medium armies), firecloud (for van/hel) and possibly falling fires (if you find yourself facing large armies you couldnt handle otherwise) and construction. It lets you kit out your pretender, forge various helpful items and make uber-slayers against van/helheim (a demon-bred slayer with boots of giant strength, burning pearl and ring of the warrior can take out most non-ethereal commanders with health of 20 or less and, with 2 flaming weapons could probably take on some niefels, especially with a robe of shadows).

Also, dont under-estimate the low fireshield on your sacreds, vrs the van/hel armies (who rely on defence and multiple low length weapons) and niefels (who take extra fire damage) it can be the difference between winning and losing. To go with your sacreds take either flail infantry (vrs van/hel) or battle-axe infantry (vrs niefelheim) to slaughter them. Vrs van/hel your fire resistance will help immensely vrs the common f9 bless and vrs the giants your high strength (especially on your dual morning star burning ones) lets you take them out where other nations struggle.