Early Game, Mid Game, and End Game... What's the goal of each?

[Taqwus]

Vanheim's Van units are actually rather brutal, considering halfway good prot of 14 plus Glamour. I tried them out with a Water-9 dragon to assist; the dragon, a Vanjarl prophet, Vanlade the Hero and roughly a dozen Vans whomp independent forces of 3 commanders plus 80-90 HI/militia quite handily. If I'd bothered bringing along air gems for Arrow Fend, perhaps casualties would be zero instead of ~1-2.
'course, it was basically game over when the Ancient Presence event apparently killed approximately 26000 people in my capital, but that's beside the point.