Patala

[Aezeal]

yes it helps..

I've played the first 10 turns in a few strats and the main thing to me seems to have patience to get a few elephants

I've tried so far with a awake pretender which naturally means that scales suffer.. and suffer so much that the first turns pumping elephants goes slowly (I'm using sloth since most guides seem to have that, and only sloth 2 not even 3)

my tests where with a 10 dom 8E cyclops.. he could pretty much take provinces on his own from turn 1 (or 2 if you are more carefull) but I would like a bit better scales

options to me seem:
dom 9 instead of dom 10
earth 6 instead of earth 8
or both

or taking a dormant pretender

is dom 9 much worse than dom 10 for a SC (early, mid and late game?
same for earth 6 vs earth 8 (IMHO there are not much spells using earth 8 and not much spells that have better effect when cast byu a higher earth mage the bless is worse of course as is the protection of the cyclops (and my only test didn't do that well but maybe if I'm carefull)