[sansanjuan]

Jim,
Love your music BTW.

One setting not to be underestimated is graphs on/off. When they are on it's easy to pick out the top dogs and act appropriatly. When they are off... it's easy to pick and ally or enemy who is not what you expected stength-wise. Some chart stuff is misleading, e.g. "army size" where someone with 500 undead vs another with 15 kitted Tarts, but the rest will show significant, actionable, information via magnitude and slope. In my two games I'm playing in one of each and think both are interesting to play in.

Also remember most blesses become muted late game as they become duplicated by high level spells (some req gems) and accessable by many nations (and not limited to buffing sacred units). Scales are forever though.

One thing that makes this game so great is creating a plan unique to your nation's strenghts, plan for world domination and be flexible enough to scrap it, re-evaluate, and create a new master plan "B", and "C", etc. as the changing situation warrants. If you are attacked by Ermor your tactics will likely be very different than if the attacker is Eriu. Unit placement, spell scripting, attack scripting, temporal collation of orders, unit reinforcements, item usage, battlefield prep rituals, etc. You'll often wonder (esp. after losing a close battle) "Damn, if I would have done "X" instead of "Y" victory would be mine.".

Although you've heard..

research (inc. gem searching, getting capable MUs)- HUGE

diplomancy - HUGE

-SSJ