Dominions 5: Therodos - first impressions, rookie mistakes

This is a very interesting faction which I tried yesterday and did a lot of stumbling with. Here's what I've learned:

Ephors are everything. Each Ephor is a never ending unit factory, the units they make cost nothing to upkeep. It's far more important to develop this and get this going than almost anything else you can do.

Call Ephor is a Death magic spell, it's level 0 so you start with it but your only units that can cast it are Daktyls who got lucky on their random magic path. It's roughly one in four. They're a cap only unit so you probably want your cap making Daktyls non stop through the whole game. It's quite likely that at some point you'll have enough gems that the chokepoint on building your infinite ghost generators is the number of Daktyls you have with Death magic.

• You probably want to use all your gems making Ephors. The spell costs 7 Death gems which is a bargain. It costs 14 Astral pearls which is still a bargain. It costs 28 of any other type of gems through alchemy which is probably still better than almost anything else you would do with the gems. I may make a few exceptions like Owl Quills for instance.
  
•  Every Ephor calls spectres all the time.
  
• Never make philosophers, it costs you one and a half Ephors. There's plenty of other places to get research, notably all the Daktyls you're rolling.
  
• Check provinces you conquer to see if they offer magi, particularly Death magi in the recruitment window (shortcut R).
  
• It's probably a strong play to design your god to help find suitable sites. If you take him to Death 5-6 and Astral 5-6 he can search provinces that are likely to have high gem density such as throne provinces or woods (or if you're completionist all the provinces) and get all the gem and astral types which are the most relevant fuel for your war machine.
  
• Never risk your ephors. I just fought a battle where the AI got a chance to take a pop at my ephors and I lost 4 of them in a fight I otherwise won easily. Damn birds!
  
• You probably don't need to buy any unit with upkeep other than a few Kouretes at the start of the game. Save your gold for buildings as you expand across the map. Keep placing temples and your domain will expand killing the living. You don't need to conquer someone to ruin their day.
  
• the faction has no need of recruitment points, resources or supply. It's very short of gold.