[Gregstrom]

As far as empowering goes, the summons I don't think need any more empowerment than 1S and 1E for one of your Stargazer Dragons.

Rings of Sorc/Wiz do the rest. For Wave Dragons it's even cheaper - you just make a Water Bracelet and your Ice Dragons can summon it straight off. I think it's not unfair to assume that you'd normally have Con 6 by the time you start looking at mid-high level summons. For the top tier, I don't think you need any empowers - if I read things correctly and the Gold Dragon has F4S1, then a RoW does the read. The Astral Dragon is an easy summon for your empowered Stargazer - no further preparation needed there either.

I only see getting a Gold Dragon as a potential sticking point, as I think you'd need to spend another 30 gems empowering your Starshine Dragon to E2.

In race design I don't think you need too much production scale, really. With the cost of units, gold is a more limiting factor in the early game. Later on, you can always buy extra forts to increase unit output.

I'd rate order and luck highly, though, for the reasons you gave.

Looking at pretender design, the Ivy Dragon pretender seems a cut above the rest. New paths cost 20 points instead of 40-50, and it starts with Nature so you can easily get a cheap N4 bless your sacred summons will love.