Good pointers.
Sadly this was not a pretender I intended playing MP with, as I mentioned when we started. It was a test singleplayer SC/bless strategy. It wasn't just the drain scale, the turmoil held me back pretty hard as well. The drain was intended to give my sacreds even better stats - better magic resist.
3 Death didn't help on the economy either, lol. All those disastrous scales to have my pretender up early, just so he could stay home and research as I saw how horribly slowly that department did. I never could gain access to any high level fire magic as my researchers HAD to be anointed ones, 440 gold per, or else they died of old age pretty soonish. He he, live and learn.
I felt confident when I advanced on you during your 2 front war with Pangea and Ermor, sadly I felt too sorry for you when you started whining, lol
Curse my capacity for mercy!