[thejeff]

If you're relying on capital only sacreds, you've probably gone for a high dominion, maybe not 9-10, but at least 7-8. Likely higher for TC than Neifel since it's going to be longer than a few turns before you have the gold to max out Neifel production.

With either Mictlan or TC you'll probably be maxed out from the beginning, or at worst after taking 1-2 provinces. Only 250 gold/turn if you went for 10 dominion and you have cheap mage-priests to lead them.

You won't be maxing out on Neifel giants for a long time. Even 7 giants and a Jotun Jarl to lead them is over 1000 gold a turn. That's a lot more than a few turns expanding. The gold cost is the main limitation for most of the first year.

I haven't experimented with actual W5E/Niefel Giant battles, but I'd expect them to do a lot of damage in those 4-5 rounds. If you've got 3-1 odds, which isn't unlikely given the 6-1 cost ratio, do they really freeze up before dropping giants?