[Twan]

For the two nations I've writen guides.

Arco MA

EG 4 (elephants ftw, but you may have difficulties against some bless nations or awake pretenders)
MG 2 (no easy access to thugs or forge of gem-economy items, correct infantry but need a lot of indie archers and mages on the field)
LG 4 to 5 (depending of how many astrologers have survived, and if you have found indies mages completing the nation)

Ease of Learning (SP) :
5 (you just trample everything with ethearal elephants) or
3 (if you try to use something else)

Ease of Use (MP) :
2 (you need to master communions and script very carefully for each big battle, and diversify to summoning paths for late game ; gems may lack for that without some efforts to developp an economy)


Utgard LA
EG 4 with a good bless, 3 without (giants... but you won't have big armies of them)
MG 5 (recruitable thugs, cheap researchers, nationals can forge clams)
LG 4 (everybody have thugs or SCs now, and others have better MR than yours ; BUT you have access to the three most powerful paths for endgame to compensate, and probably an huge income from clams at this point) I would have said 5 without Ermor and Rlyeh in this age


Ease of Learning (SP)
4 (you just kill everything with ethearal double blessed giants, but the cost of the troops may be a problem, and the nation is not as good with a weaker bless)

Ease of Use (MP)
3 or 4 (not really hard to equip thugs and script mages to buff them ; but the transition to endgame may be painfull if you rely too much on your recruitables ones)