[LDiCesare]

As for fort locations, you could just set them in the map and decide the capital to be in the middle. That speeds up the process and is quite easy.

To me the most annoying spells were the damn black hawks (impossible to break the walls despite almost all my forces on the fort, and with some wall-breaking bonuses to boot). I have no idea if they can be as effective in a non-nerfed game, though, but I think a Flame from the Sky ruins them pretty well. But then there are domes. But then FftS will eventually pass through if you spam it.

Also seeking arrows. I think that Caelum could stockpile air gems whereas I and Eriu were busy using our gems on other stuff (black hawks, jaguars...). Caelum's stockpile was efficiently used to slaughter the commanders whom I sent to besiege their capital. Without mages and leadership, my southern army was soon toast.
I'd suggest a map that forces players to attack an identified neighbour too btw. If 2 players randomly gang up on the same guy, the poor is likely toast and the remaining player can easily sit and wait, stockpiling gems instead of losing them in battle. When hsi neighbour becomes too big or small, he can effectively attack him. I think it's a bit cheesy, although one would be stupid not to profit from the situation. I started wondering where to go when Eriu pleasantly offered me a god to kill, but kept being afraid that Caelum would strike me rather than BL.
Also note that seeking arrows are very effective against humans but mostly harmless against giants and big-hp commanders. Since it was hard for me to summon big-hp leaders, this made seeking arrow more effective. This also makes nations with recruitable thugs much stronger. Oh. Also, I s*** at putting up domes.

I never tried blood. I had no blood mage to begin with, so I'd have had to hunt + empower + hunt + cast. The game was far too short for that.