Lanka pretender design/strategy

[K]

Ok, here is the trick to playing Lanka(short version).

W9/N9 on your pretender. The quickness, regen and Berserk are are must haves to an unstopppable bless army. You seriously can take almost any indie province with 4 Palashankas if you do this. If you choose some other bless, they are basically just like normal(but good) units. Run a few test games if you like.

Get Growth, for the Blood hunting. Dump Productivity, as your resource heavy units are capital only and you capital takes in enough.

I like Magic 1 so that indie mages can research and even luck(0) because its not a hassle, but those are play-style choices.

Go Construction 4 ASAP for the Skull Mentors, then Blood 4 for the Rakshasa Warriors. Pick up the site searching spells as needed. Blood 8 has Mandahas and they are wicked awesome, and Blood 6 has a summonable national mage that is pretty awesome.

Your middle and late game will suck as your mages aren't powerful enough to power the good Death, Air, or Nature magics, so expect that you'll have to summon casters for that.