[Baalz]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

...take Sloth 3, Turmoil 3, and Drain 3 with this strategy....

...At that point, build a single Holy1/Earth 1 unit, and then resume building Ancient Lords...

...With dwarven hammers, it comes down to about 40 gems per Ancient Lord, most of them Earth.

I'd suggest that one Ancient Lord thus equipped could *probably* take out a fairly weak Independent Province, if only he were self-blessing. Sadly, this is not the case, so you're going to want to bring along atleast 1 priest unit. Once you're able to build Oracles, 4 of these guys, plus an equipped Oracle, should be able to annihilate any Independent.

So, let me get this straight. You're ignoring any expansion for the first half a year. You're ignoring any research for close to the first year. You have crippled your income and ability to research through the whole game with your scales so it's pretty much impossible to catch up even if everybody leaves you alone. Then you equip "Cheap as hell items" on these guys at 40 gems apiece (ignoring hammer cost) to still need 4 of them at a cost of 160 gems (which are coming from your...uh aggressive site searching?) plus an expensive mage just to take out indies reliably?

I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see how this is feasible in the most remote sense.