Need suggestions for my next game setup...

[LintMan]

OK, my current game is winding down, so I'm thinking about what race/pretender I should take for my next game. I have some general ideas, but could use some suggestions for good specifics.

In my current game, I'm using a Bless-effect pretender for Marignon, who did absolutely no fighting for the entire game. (Just research and ritual spells). So for my next game, I want to try out a SC pretender strategy. I'm tempted to try the Vampire Queen, which people seem to think is the ultimate (overpowered?) SC, but I'm open to other ideas.

I'll also mention, that I'm currently using APoger's "recuperating gods" mod, which gives *all* pretenders recuperation. In my current game it benefitted me not at all, but I think it certainly helped the AI, since I stopped getting attacked by gimpy blind AI pretenders like in previous games. So I'll probably keep it in for this next game as well. That might make some pretenders a bit more viable as SC's, and probably makes a few SC's that already had recuperation a bit overpriced (though I'm tempted to adjust the mod to cheapen them a bit to benefit any AI's that might choose them).

I'm not sure what race to pick either. I think Ermor would be cool to try, but I hear it makes the SP game too easy, so I'll pass on that. I'm also thinking I'd like to go for one of the more magic-capable/oriented races. Unless I specifically was to go for a blood-magic oriented nation, I will probably ignore blood magic compeltely.

I'd like to play on a medium to large map (maybe 150-200 provinces), and I'm thinking 8-12 impossible-AI opponents. Probably Independent-7 toughness, normal research, high magic site quantity normal (or maybe rich?) provinces. I liked the Middle Earth map, and have also played Aran, but don't know any others. Any good map choices?

So anyway, I'm looking for some suggestions for a good SC pretender, what paths to pick and buff spells to research, and what race to use to go along with this pretender.

Thanks, all!