Re: Balanced Nations
Eriu has poor magic diversity, no access to astral/blood/death, stealthy sacred thugs, and wants a bless even more than Marignon does. Like Man, they really struggle to stay competitive later in the game.
Magic diversity is important, but so is astral/death/blood access. T'ien Ch'i has great magic diversity (but low skill and no death or blood), Marignon has less diversity (but good astral), Machaka has reasonable magic diversity (but no astral or blood and death caps out at 2), and Abysia has limited diversity but good access to both astral and blood. Eriu (and Man) are the odd ones out because they have neither diversity nor access to astral/death/blood. Any of these nations can solve diversity problems with their pretender to some extent, but it's pretty bad when your national mages only have access to two relatively weak paths.
Is Pan really more of a bless threat than Marignon, or even Machaka or T'ien Ch'i? They all have good (and expensive) capital only sacred cavalry, but I wouldn't design a pretender around a bless for any of them. Pan has limited magic and expensive mages, offsetting some access to blood and a smidgen of death, and play somewhat differently than a lot of the other nations on the list.
Arco seems like a good fit. They have limited magic but pretty good astral, and yet another capital only sacred troop that isn't really good enough to warrant a bless. Elephants are nice, but not all that. Machaka has recruitable size six troops, and astral/fire have lots of anti-elephant tools from pretty early on, especially when combined with mass archers, so Marignon doesn't give a fig about elephants either and Abysia/TC have options.
Ulm is another one of those nations with only two magic paths, neither of which are astral/death/blood, and their troops aren't very good either (high encumbrance, low skill, poor magic resistance, map move one). Not much good against elephants, but not much good against anything else either. Definitely hugging the bottom of the curve and possibly worse than Man.
Mictlan might be worth considering, but I don't know much about MA Mictlan.
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