[Sombre]

Well, my question to this is why should it be harder to play than vanilla nations, if it's meant to be played alongside them? About the only other nation that is this schismatic is EA Arco, and there the choices aren't nearly so hard.

Well as I said it's not supposed to be very underpowered and currently I don't think it is, although it could perhaps do with a boost. I don't think there's any problem with the nation being hard to play (if you're using mods I have to assume you're not a greenhorn to the game) and forcing you to make hard choices if it's still balance-wise roughly as good as the vanilla nations.

Well, I don't necessarily agree with points 1) and 3) here, from my own experience. Don't know what you mean by 'high Dominion'; my Oracle had a 7, and I found that it was pretty overkill from most standpoints.

Also, I'm not sure why I'd want an Earth bless. As you point out, it doesn't help your Penitents at all, and everyone else already has more than sufficient protection. I would think that a Bless that helps out Penitents (Fire/Water/Death/Astral) would be good, since it also boosts your other Sacreds at the same time. Playing a high-Earth bless seems to be overkill while doing nothing for your sacred troops' weaknesses (i.e., magic).

7 might be high enough. The stronger your dominion the more penitent you'll get, the more you'll be able to move the black priests around without cutting off the spawning and the more chance you'll have of amassing anchorites etc. Plus with stealthy preachers dominion kill is actually on the table.

Benefits of an earth bless: Reinvig your sacred mages. Reinvig your high encumbrance high survival sacreds who suffer badly from critical hits caused by fatigue. Push an already high protection to the point where anchorites and reborn are very, very hard to hurt. I think earth blessing works best with units that are already high protection.

I'm not a big bless player, nor am I particularly good at dom3 generally, but I think an earth-9 bless is worth it with this nation.

I think that there is a much more optimal strategy for these guys than you might think. It may not be as optimal as the strategy for some others, but it's not simply a bunch of trade-offs.

Maybe. I'm not really into looking for the 'perfect' start build. I'd probably go something like order 3 prod 3 misfortune 2 drain 3 on scales, earth 9 bless,... not sure what else,... or for a penitent build I'd go for very high dom, fire and air bless, growth scale, sloth,... you get the picture. There's probably a middle ground in there that makes the most of it all though. I leave that up to you guys :]

Please note that that is basically all I play, so I'm pretty biased here. But even most 'capital-centric' nations (EA Mictlan, Arcoscephale, Sauromatia to some extent) get a researcher outside the capital.

Yeah and I mostly play Aran and Parganos, so I'm probably biased the other way. As I said though, I don't want to cripple them for people who like large maps.

E2 is pretty good, but that's not as important as the non-capital-only designation. May I suggest that if you do that, switch the domspawn to the White Priest?

I like the domspawn on the black priests, really gives them a different role from the white priests (who just summon 1 penitent per turn). If you could build more black priests (ie, noncap) the penitent hording would be more effective, though you'd have to decide whether you want them at the frontlines pushing dom and killing cats, or if you want them tucked somewhere spawning penitent. A case where high dominion is useful I think.

Yes, the White Priests seem okay compared to other mages, but the fact that they're your only good researchers more or less means you need to recruit one/turn. So while they are worth their cost, they are not necessarily worth their cost _for purposes of research_.

If I make black priests noncap and stick in a new researching drain-proof mage that'll be sorted and you'll be able to get more use out of them. Thanks to smite, bladewind etc they do make good battlemages.

Interesting. It seems to be designed from the wrong end of the stick, though, y'know? Generally you make a very easy-to-kill unit that changes into something 'bigger'. E.g., Jaguar Warriors. This unit is almost like an egg or a small oyster. I was honestly expecting something a little better than a Penitent for a MagB unit (which isn't as bad to lead as some but still can cause issues).

They're weird, yes, and I don't think there's anything like them in vanilla, but I like that. They'll be dropped in cost a touch but the 'shapechange' stays - the idea I suppose is to avoid getting them cracked open - a bit like a tank.

I was playing regular Ulm Reborn. I can also try the CBM one if you wish.

Well it's up to you. If you like to play with CB on they're balanced towards it, obviously. Includes stuff like lower cavalry resource costs, warhorse hooves etc.