[Evilhomer]

Ironhawk sure heat 3 will cost him in income this is true. However with growth 3, order 3 and production 2-3 as well as his starting pop bonus he will have an income that is good enough anyway. If he can avoid the heat 3 that would be good...but the points have to come from some somewhere, and heat is alot better choice than taking turmoil or drain (he will be kicking himself after turn 30 if he does this). And since the growth bonus is exponential, in a game this huge this IS a must if he wants a build that is competitive in the late game (sure if he want to go out in a blaze of glory he go with death i suppose ). With heat sure his mages will tire a bit faster on his territority, but so will his opponents you know. The cyclops is a top notch pretender as well and with dom <9 it is probably better at taking ind that the wurm (since the wurm has so low prot) - of course he still will have to be a bit carefull with it. And in the mid game it will definitivly be a better pick. Sure a dom 9-10 awake wurm would be kickass however, but where do you intend to get the points for that ? especially if you don't go with heat ?.

btw, the research seems to be hard not very hard.


edit: yes an awake dom 9 pretender with 0 heat, with order and growth 3 is possible, but the rest of the scales has to be like this:

1. prod 2, mis 3, drain 2. Works well early on but he will be left in the dark ages once magic starts to be used by everyone.

2. sloth 1, mis 3, magic 1. Could work i suppose, but the resource penalty will be pretty bad for a resource heavy nation like MA agartha.