Most Usefull Research Path...

[Dragar]

Blood is very nice alone, but I was thinking along the ines of which school would be best for the majority of nations, which I think has to be construction. In particular for any nation with decent recruitable thugs, like the giant races. An rainbow pretender would pretty much be a must to get the gem income happening

It would be interesting to have a game to test this, say 12 players, each randomly assigned a research school (so 2 of each), who then go and choose a nation (any age) to suit. On that basis blood could well be a winner with mictlan, but it would be interesting to see what other combinations would challenge.

It would also be interesting if with the lack of magical options normal troops played a bigger part in the game. A strong soldier army like ulm or abysia with alteration for buffs and excellent scales could be a goer. Elephants/hydras are probably even nastier with fewer magical counters.

I think you'd need to have dead seas though, it would be impossible for most nations to enter the water