[Zywack]

I've played a few quick turns with multiple nations in order to get a better general idea of them: It's been pretty enlightening but I encountered a few things I'm confused about. Everything's with the most recent CBM version.

1) LA C'Tis has unique priest spells like Royal Protection. The spell description states that it affects an entire undead army. I had a small army consisting of C'Tis longdeads, undead chariots and undead wyrms and casted the spell with a Lizard King. The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out (For example, some chariots got it, some didn't and location didn't seem to be a factor). I tried again with both a Lizard King and a Tomb King casting Royal Protection and the result was the same. How come?

2) Patala early expansion. They look like a very interesting nation with a ton of unique summons, nagas (I like Nagas in general), a seducer with multiple magic picks and absolutely amazing mages for late age (Are they the ones with the most magic picks?). I considered using them in the next multiplayer game I join until I tried a few a few test runs for early expansion and failed horribly on every single try.
Is it actually possible to take a province on turn 2 without having an awake god? I tried:
-Bandar Archers (Can't afford enough to make a difference)
-Two elephants (They rout before making contact with the enemy no matter if I put them in their own separate squad or with the starting melee monkeys, even against enemy armies of 40 militias + archers). Only won once against a tiny province and lost the majority of the starting army.
-Nagas (They do okay against small melee units but die horribly to any archer/javelin and the armored version cost a ton of ressources). Bandar melees would suffer from the same problem.
So is there a "trick" to early Patala expansion, or are you forced to expand slower than anyone else or require an awake SC pretender?


3) Not a gameplay question at all, but... Does anyone else find it a tad depressing to read the progress of races through the ages? Things seemingly go from bad to worse for pretty much everyone... Ignoring all the people who already got blown up in the past like Tir na N'og, let's see what's happening with the late age nations, alongside with a "turned to death magic" count:

Abyssia: Their race virtually disapeared alongside with most of their power.
Agartha: Race stops existing, seal weakening, turned to death magic and necromancy (1).
Arcoscephale: Surprisingly doing okay, I'd say even a step up from MA.
Atlantis: Kicked out of their homes, turned to death magic and necromancy (2), and Oceania is completely destroyed.
Bogarus: Just read some of the unit descriptions, that's just horrible!
Caelum: Realm took over by user of death magic (3), replaced by weaker beings.
C'Tis: Their home swamps are turning to desert, turning to necromancy (4)
Ermor: ... no need to explain this one (5)
Gath: Dying race living in a land destroyed that's still enslaving another race.
Jomon: Doing great, improving every age (at least by peasant viewpoint).
Man: Losing their tradition and magic, but doing okay otherwise. Not that bad.
Marignon: Doing awesome, beside the questionable addition of limited blood sacrifice.
Mictlan: Evil blood sacrifice returning to the foremost of their culture.
Midgar: Vanir's race vanishing and magic fading, but doing okay-ish.
Pangaea: Their home is being destroyed, their traditions are lost, turned to death magic and necromancy (6)
Patala: Nagas don't seem to be cruel masters, so I'd say equal to what they were.
Pythium: Heretics everywhere, about to blow up
R'lyeh: Everything went to hell. No death magic and necromancy, though.
T'ien Ch'i: They got invaded by Mongols... That's never fun for anyone.
Ulm: Darkness and vampires now roam the land.
Utgard: Jotun population dwindling, but they are getting along with humans so it's not that bad.

So to recap we have:
2 nations where everything went completely to hell
2 nation which is close to that state
6 nations that turned to death and necromancy
4 nations where their races are about to become extinct
3 nations overtaken by darkness and blood
2 nations doing fine
3 nations doing great

That's a pretty depressing tally!