[Aleph]

Here's my experience.

1-2. I believe it's dominion strength, + possibly temples give better spawn. Or maybe I just have better spawns on temples because the dominion is higher. Certainly for LA Ermor temples and forts give better freespawns. It is certainly not a direct geometric progression like 1 dom = 1 spawn, 10 dom = 10 spawns.

3. I believe the answer to all of these is yes.

4. I don't think so, but I don't know. Starspawn are immune, pretty much everyone else ends up insane sooner or later.

5. Nope. A commander is either insane for that round or not. If not, they'll do what you say.

6. Someone else posted 15-20 as the likely point of no return. In the same post, they said this was the kind of information that the designers like to not tell you, so that was just their experience. I would say yes, bring in someone new, since I like Vastness + Gift of Reason far more than I like bunches of othernesses. Plus once you get your clam machine rolling, you'll be summoning Void Spectres like mad to be Dreams of Rl'yeh assassins and to hold your clams (guaranteed S4, ethereal, no need to eat, no gold upkeep - sounds like a good solution for a dying nation with dwindling gold), and they have the summoning skill and are quite a bit tougher than normal Starspawn, so just swap them in as needed with a handful of freespawn bodyguards (I mostly use 3 immobile mind blasters and a couple greater othernesses or things that should not be).

7. I don't think anyone has the exact data you are looking for. Higher is better, although with the caveat of +6.

8. Absolutely - they come with your freespawns. You get lots of othernesses (mostly small ones), and a mix of the little psychic immobile mushroom guys, and the mobile and immobile green swirlies. You're never going to pick up a Vastness or Visitor.

9. That's pretty much what you asked for #5 if I'm getting you right.

Special Bonus info - the strength of your dominion definitely affects the number of people killed per round by the dreamlands. I believe you can usually come out a little bit ahead with growth 3 and dominions of 5 or less. Once you start throwing down temples, though, your dominion will rise and your numbers will start to fall. You can hold it off for quite a while if you use your freespawn commanders for preaching (especially if you end up with loads of prophets), but eventually I always want to start pushing more actively into enemy domain.