Yomi, the Oni Kings
I like to design a pretender for every nation. Yomi is probably not the best nation on early era but I like the nation theme. Recruitable samurai demons that are unfair rulers.
Pretender design (CBM):
Great Sage
Dom Str: 5
Order: 3
Luck: -2
(sinergy here is that i need money and without an awake monster pretender or strong troops order is a key. fewer provinces but more gold. besides you dont need strong dominion to give order to you capitol. the biggest income province)
Sloth: 3
Heat: 3
Growth: 2
(Sloth is probably obvious since your troops dont demand high resource cost. Heat and growth is a personal preference but not for any particular reason, maybe for the cold blooded hannyas)
Drain: 2
(The pretender is carriyng the bulk of the research task. and the added magic resistance makes the demon troops a little better vs banish)
(income is somewhat positive +3%, heat 3 is at tactical advantage because heat protection (thanks gregstrorm) and you dont feel badly because of the negative ones)
Magics:
F2 A4 W4 E4 S4 D2 N4 B3
(minor bless for the Dai Onis, can be tweaked. Main side is 43 rp from your pretender)
Opening turns:
Turn 1:
First thing your pretender researchs construction, recruit an Oni general and if you feel lucky try to get a merc (if allowed by house rules) rest of the money on bakemono archers (8 g, short bow, brilliant)
Turn 2:
The army you gathered either attacks the weakest province or if you grabbed a merc group you can attack a stronger, hopefully better province. Appoint your Oni general as a prophet. Recruit a Hannya and whatever looks good (more bakenonos maybe).
Turn 3:
Join your prophet (with troops) and the first army on your next attack. The Hannya should be going manually site searching now. Recruit a Sorcerer.
Turn 4:
The battle that you hopefully won left bodies. Now the trick with the oni general is that he can resurrect undead since hes a demon-priest. Have him reanimate soulles here and when the bodies run out go after the next battle site (free troops). If you got an air sorcerer have him site search too.
Following turns:
Your expansion will not be great but once you hit contruction 4 (soon enough like turn 9) you can forge skull mentors and further enhace your research.
The goal here is use the research advantage to cover for the weak army.
Depending on you see a war soon or not is what you need to do next.
If your opponent has not air magic well worth ench 5 for flaming arrows
Conj 3 + evoc and your hannyas can do summon fire power fire blast or fireball
Alt 1 gives you eagle eyes for those hannyas.
Alt 2 or 3 gives you some buffs in case you want to do early thugs with your Dai Onis. 500 gold but without equipment and with this blessing can be done. At const 4 you can even kit them.
Script: blessing, blessing, summon earth power, iron skin (or stone skin), attack closest.
If you see peace maybe going to const 6 will be nice with lightless lanterns and owl quills.
Then on probably it is good to use your research advantage to a mass amy buff. unless you feel confident and go for the artifact race then your pretender has a job to do.
(note: The build is slightly edited and made CBM so the first posts might not make sense. -1 drain +1 growth +1 heat and more magic, cbm favors this pretender it seems)