LA Utgard guide

[Viajero]

Thanks for all your advice. I have tried tio apply it in my current test solo game and these are some of the findings:

1- N9W9 bless with a Son of Ferne imprisoned pretender
2- Woodmen with regeneration and Quicken as bless are a very effective grinding machine as long as I protect them from focused dammage
3- At turn 30 or thereabouts have finsihed researching for gem search spells plus Alteration 3 and turned now into Construction but it ll be a while until I reach level 4 or 5 in it.
4- Have not been able to use thugs so far as not equiped yet, so my army is heavily (almost solely) relaying on woodmen. Have expanded to around 20 provinces and have just built my 3rd castle.

Is there anything that can be done to accelerate thugging? or is this pace expected?