[dark7element]

I did have a plan. I was going to try and rush towards Mother Oak and Gift of Health, while not taking any scales of growth to save points, in order to counteract crone mortality, which is one of Man's biggest weaknesses. I was planning to spam tons of castles and aggressively trade for air gems to summon the air elemental royalty as a SC, to compensate for my crappy national troops. That strategy allowed me to defeat a bunch of AI players set to 'mighty' difficulty. But even against inexperienced players, it probably wouldn't work very well. Arcoscephale has crappy troops also, but at least their mages are good (and don't require massive effort to stop them from dying of old age constantly).