[RadicalTurnip]

Perhaps he's looking to bless his commanders. This could make sense with Niefelheim (I've done a fairly successful run with T3 S3 C3 Death3 L3 Drain2 dormant pretender with a somewhat low dominion (I think it was 4).

The key was that my 500-a-pop giants could take on pretty much any indie province (we were playing with Indies set to 9). Sure I didn't get one every turn, but every 3rd turn was fine, and that would have been more if I didn't build some researchers early. For research (eventually) I build Skull Mentors (2-a-turn for...a very long time) from all the death sites my expansion netted me (after killing a neighbor), while I researched up the Alteration tree so my giants could quicken themselves (I didn't take a water bless).

I wouldn't recommend my exact strategy, even though I ended up winning through some tricky use of a few giants up front guarding hoards of indy necromancers that I got lucky to find, each with a shroud and a skull staff (E10 bless), so they could summon skeletons for a long time. And spamming Wolven Winter. At least 5 a turn, everywhere I was getting ready to attack or feared being attacked that was outside my dominion.