EA Mictlan Setup - Q's from a noob

[Hellboy]

I'm playing around w/ Mictlan for my next MP game, and it does look like a whole lot of fun, and I've got a few Q's regarding setup. I'm generally thinking of a cheap pretender w/ uber bless (WF+? - I know, rather unoriginal, but its just too much fun!), and the following questions arise.

1) On Dominion strength, I'm thinking 5 or 6 - is that enough for Mictlan?
In my first few MP attempts I tend to go for Dom=3, paying for more than that always seems to waste the potential to spend cash and bring your dominion strength up later on w/ temples. OTOH, I have experienced some opening game difficulties due to low dominion. And, of course w/ Mictlan you need to recruit as many of those sacred units as possible.

2) On scales, it really seems that you can get away w/ quite negative scales, sloth 3 seems like a no brainer, since your troops are low resource, Death 3 likewise seems affordable, and drain 2 seems affordable since your researchers are so cheap.
I'd appreciate comments on the above, but the big question I have is whether or not to go order 3/misfortune 3, or even both out. You're essentially trading 21% boost in income for misfortune 3, and I don't know if that's a good idea. I've played w/ EA TC & Luck 3 a lot, and going the other way into misfortune seems like it might not be worth the 21% boost in income.

3) The other downside of going misfortune 3 is the reduced chance of getting heroes - can someone tell me if there is zero chance of getting heroes on misfortune 3? Also, I'm thinking of playing w/ worthy heroes mod, but iirc, even the worthy heroes for Mictlan didn't seem so great...

4) OK, even though what I've already described is some truly awful scales, I have to push it still further and ask if it is completely ridiculous to contemplate going order 0, misfortune 1, or turmoil 1, misfortune 0? I don't see myself myself doing this, but I had to ask.

5) How do you best get access to earth magic, as Mictlan, if you don't take earth magic on your pretender? Do any blood summons not requiring earth magic yield a mage w/ earth magic? Also, in the conjuration school, are there any summons that would allow you to jump over to earth from nature, death or water?

6) While my main interest has been in doing an uber bless, I also notice the Lord of the Night pretender seemed pretty cool. However, based on the limited testing I've done, it seems he's maybe not quite strong as I thought from my first impression. It seems that he'll need a bit of buffing to be proficient at taking out indies - anyone out there w/ experience w/ the Lord of the Night care to comment?

7) I'm primarily looking at EA Mictlan, but LA Mictlan looks nice as well. I noticed the amphibious units, I don't suppose its the case that LA Mictlan can put in PD in the ocean provinces (like Agartha can)?



TIA,

Hellboy