No. I was partly successful with E9F6 bless and killed one neighbor in MP, but then got attacked by 2 others who had much better research...
I was able to hold until game ended, but not to counter-attack in any force.
What I've found is that there are good diplomatic possibilities with EA Ulm forging bonus - you can sell items with discount and still gather gems... I'm still thinking about it and plan to test the results in MP one day, but this probably has to wait for some time...
Bless may be good enough strategy in SP, by the way, but not in MP due to the fact that their sacreds are capital-only and Move 1.