[Illuminated One]

Agreed.
I have played with order 3/misfortune 2 in mp and lost. Gold is really not so much an issue after a certain time. Luck will give you gems from time to time which are quite nice considering that you don't have a starting gem income for most of your paths and your smiths are good forgers.

I also think Kissblade is right, drain is bad. You have only cheap mages. If you take drain it will hurt you more than a nation with expensive mages that will also try to win the research race.
Order 3 gives you +21% gold which means theoretically +21% research.
Magic 1 vs Drain 2 on the other hand gives every mage you recruit +2 rp which is +40% on a 5 rp mage, more on the lower mages.

One thing that caught my attention when reading the LA Man guide: Ulm can be pretty good at castle warfare, too, maybe even better than Man, if properly prepared. Vampires (not the counts, the normal ones) have a good strength and are flying. One summoning (22 blood slaves, 8 vamps) are almost as good as a Magister of Man in defending a castle and they are flying and stealthy right from the start. And you get lots of freespawn via stealthy commanders. So while Man needs to use valuable commanders to defend a castle you could only use troops/summons/freespawn while having your commanders research inside the castle.