[BigDaddy]

They can't even find achaisic record. With Pythium, I've used a pretender with completely different paths than the awesome locals, and he operated almost autonomously, summoning his group of mages and they in turned summoned stuff. But Machaka doesn't get pearls. You must be able to sort something out, but the spiders and hoplite don't cut it against demons and other summoned units and SCs. I don't know how to use a pretender in the endgame to save a nation if they can't get gems. If they can get gems they can summon summoners. Lead time lags a bit on getting offensive compared to other option, but ultimately you spend a lot of gems. I admittedly haven't used this in technique in MP or even 2 player.