The Pariden outpost spell is definitely very useful but I don't consider it overpowered - it costs 30 mana, which is a big deal in the early game. Tarth's superscouts ability is balanced by the fact they don't get much else - also their over-reliance on bows can be shut down through air magic and carefully selecting traits and equipment for your troops.

I've played Magnar in the last beta and I really like the slaves - even if they are weak, you can spam them like crazy an they're really expendable because it's so easy to replace them too - in the early game they are amazing.

I've played Resoln too and I would actually put the shard converting higher than the bound spiders - as they also get extra death spells. Ceresa can single handedly win the game as long as she has lots of death shards. The spiders won't win the game by themselves (although they are nice t have )

Gilden's abilities kick in late game and the armour can be totally bypassed through mass curse so personally I'd drop these a few ranks.

I haven't played Yithril or Kraxis so I havent really got an opinion on these. The juggernauts are another late game bonus though so often the dye is set once you gte to this stage in the game. I did have a brief go with Altar however I quickly ditched them to play a new game with Pariden so I didnt get much chance to try em out.

Pariden and Tarth may be able to expand quickly but I don't think territory is the deciding factor really - the AI often expands quicker than me and trains more troops too but I know I can beat them as long as I've developed my sovereign well and he/she is backed up by some good troops. It's quite possible to keep up with the AI with just a couple of cities, the key thing is to develop a powerful sovereign with a highly levelled escort, this one force can then tear your neighbours a new one when you wish to expand.

Anyway just a few thoughts

@ Droghar

I don't think the AI is playing Resoln right, they are actually very powerful and the lack of armour is no big deal really (they should be developing down the civ and magic branches anyway).

I had a big surplus of metal with Resoln, they don't have many ways to use this up unfortunately. I didnt train lots of spiders either (probably 14 throughout the entire game till it bugged on me) - I just looked on them as maintenance free garrisons that cost the price of a summon (in mana) - they werent central to my strategy (they work well with ranged troops though). I liked the Cyndrum demons if you could get them to 9 - but really I think the big strength of Resoln is their death magic

When comparing faction abilities, you have to take into account all the abilities of a faction. For example Resoln have shard-converting, bound elementals AND spiders. They can't have three abilities that are as good as Tarths single ability, then they would be *too* OP. I like the point of this thread, but I would choose to rank the factions in regards to all their abilities, instead of ranking the ablities alone. On the other hand, I suppose there's also a point in pointing out which single abilities are the best too, as long as you look at the whole picture when ranking the factions.

I think the ranking depend a lot on your playstyle. I personally think that Altar henchment champs are a little broken too, but in the opposite direction (i put them first in an OP ranking, so much that I don't play with Altar in .915)

Is too easy to levelling them (quitted the game because it was so easy in fact, that I felt like cheating): in my only attempt I had 6 henchmen and in i took with them a mean of 1 and half level per battle...

I think the golems are very good! they can take a lot of punishment and survive the battle, I usually use them with the lighting hammer, and a couple of item to boost initiative.

The demons of the death shard get 400 hitpoints midgame.

If they got Hoarder Spiders that would not be the case.   Hoarder Spiders rule!  (Especially with the bug with splash damage. )

There are some really good points coming out of this.  It looks like a lot of the powers come into their own mid-late game, especially those that require nurturing.  AND that I was biased to towards easy outpost spell

Perhaps grouping the abilities into their strategic game effect would help determine their comparability of OPness? I've already aluded to Tarth and Parieden's abilities being linked to territory aquisition.  From the sentiments above, I'd say that Tarth probably have the upperhand here due to the overall usefulness of not getting attacked, compared to the mana cost of the outpost spell, which has diminishing returns for small maps.

Altar Henchemen, Resoln death demons I think are comparable in that they both need a great deal of nurturing to get them OP.  I'd say that the henchman probably have the upperhand here, due to being able to raise damage output, and defense.  500hp of squishy with a fist won't end up beating a tank or warrior henchman with upped deg, and a sword that belongs in a JRPG

Has anyone been using the special armours, or buying city traits?  Or the recruiting both factions' champions?  Or other thoughts on Juggs at the moment?

That was on challenging, but I figure if it works that well for challenging, it should work on higher levels to.

Resoln demons need nurturing? Attack bandits (two+dog) and go up 3 levels in an easy fight. You can get super units immediately. The only thing that slows them is the building time of the first shard. I am winning a game on hard now with the demons, and doing no research in military.

Edit: By levels, I mean that the unit split three times and goes from a single unit to four units in one easy fight

Fair call Jasoze.  I just tinkenred iin a game as Resoln, and yeah, you can definately get them going early on when they are the most powerful.