[Boron]

don't change tien chi s&a they are already good .

i wouldn't use my nobles first frontline . they just get killed .

you need to gamble furthermore .
scales : turmoil 3 , sloth 3 , cold 3 , death 3 , magic 3 , luck 3 .
castle : watch tower
pretender : vq
this way you can e.g. take :
a3 , w 2 , e3 , d6 , b3
dominion 8

the vq either takes 1 prov / turn from turn 5 on or 1 prov / 2 turns + sitesearch the prov . with these picks she finds something like 50% .

if you just build the archers + give them a few water / fire demons they can take out the weaker indeps and at least conquer 1 province every 2 turns to from turn 5 on .

the luck is really a big gamble but you will quite often get the needed + gold just when you need it .
and if you get a +water or +fire gems event in the first 5 turns that are some additional fire / water demons .

you are somewhat dependent from luck but with turmoil 3 + luck 3 you get really many events and most are good .

if you need money you can even pillage a province since you only need money for your mages and almost not for national troops .
sure with these "horror" scales you have something about 1/3 of the income of one with order 3 productivity 3 growths 3 but in early game luck compensates .
lategame you have only to spend money on temples , castles + mages .

with magic 3 you research fast enough and should manage a top 5 position in research at least .

so what not to like ?
you even can bloodhunt with your random blood picks .
if you take water 3 on your vq she can summon :
ice devils and vampire lords .
if you don't get early some lucky random blood picks don't research blood but conjuration .
with d6 your vq needs only 1 empower item to summon tartarians and can summon the whole rest without empower .
you can lower d6 on your vq to d4 or 5 and instead take water 3 + earth 4 .

that way you can focus on blood heavyly and summon father illearth , vampire lords , the ice devils .

so construction , blood and/or conjuration are key areas .