Gems: how important are they really?

[BigDaddy]

Can you take 15 provinces by turn 12 without an SC pretender using Pythium?

Going for communion research first with Pythium is just fine. That will work just fine.

Later, Pythium will want to summon some tougher stuff. You should be hiring an arch theurg every turn as soon as possible. And those by themselves are a lot of research power and site searching power.