Mind to explain your build, now that all is settled?
Hrmf, do you mean my team or Lizzurd's? Coz I don't understand his disciple designs at all.
Ok, so here goes.
1. Pythium.
F9 bless is great by itself, but it's exceptionally great against Lizzurd's sacreds. White Centaurs of Pangaea; Tiger Riders of Bandar Log; elven cavalry of Vanheim; Shadow Vestals of Sceleria - they all rely on heavy defence. If you have means to counter defence (and preferably elven Glamour and Scelerian etherealness), all Lizzurd's sacreds are garbage. F9 grants boost to attack and additional fire damage, and that's all that I ever needed against them. Took E4, because it was affordable.
I kinda messed up research priorities of Pythium, and went for Alt4 too late. I evaluated Vanheim wrongly. What I saw as failed expansion, was actually
Waterpls ignoring his expansion completely in favor of sneaking elven raiders deep into my territory. My Vestals under F9 were not too great at beating the elves, although they managed to cause significant damage. What I needed was Hydras under Body Ethereal. Eventually I reached Alt4, recruited some Hydras, got myself some Snake Rings (so that S1 casters won't die of Poison Cloud), and was ready to go full counter-attack. But I actually managed to deal with Vanheim's invasion without Hydra's help.
Pythium doesn't benefit from F9, obviously, except for extremely fast and cheap expansion with Vestals.
Expanding with small groups of Vestals, I managed to afford a fort for me + sponsor forts for all of my Disciples. And I also had spare gold for mass-Theurg recruitment and mercs.
F9 Vestals are amazing during first year, but become obsolete later on. In any case, my bless was meant for Disciples, not for myself.
2. Caelum.
Was designed to wreak havok in early game (which he did), then begin summoning Caelum's awesome nationals. Research was meant to be boosted by heavy Owl Quill forging. Caelum has cheap A1 casters, and our team got great cummulative air income. We never got to that stage, but Azi played a major role anyway. Won a bunch of provinces solo; beaten Throne defenders; beaten Pangaea army during battle for fort Naivity. He is quite a beast under F9E4 bless.
Since our team had a very high astral income, I also had high hopes for Yazadas. By the time Team Lizzurd surrendered, Caelum was reaching Conj5 and had several Shamans ready and waiting. I was about to forge astral boosters and send him pearls for summoning. Didn't get to that stage, after all.
3. Jotunheim.
Can't find a turn with Jotunheim's Disciple (I believe he only participated in one battle), but it was simply a rainbow Skratti for site searching. Jotunheim's role was to deploy Glosos. F9E4 Glosos beat anything of size3 and larger with a smirk on their piggy faces. By the time Lizzurd surrendered, Jotunheim sent an army of Glosos sneaking towards Vanheim; and was also preparing a summoning factory in the central ring for Bandar Log's Tiger Raiders and Pangaean Centaurs. Dem Glosos are truly great when they can't trample their opponents.
4. Shinuyama.
Summoning Tengus all turn, every turn. Self-explanatory. Our birds made some tough love with Bandar Log.
= = =
The general plan was to focus on the central ring. By turn 17 Team Lizzurd lost the grip on it completely. From the start I planned a defensive playstyle, because Lizzurd's nations were much, much better suited for early wars. All the best tools of my team (Glosos, Tengus, Yazadas, Hydras under Body Ethereal, Harbingers) were beyond our reach early on. And I played the game building up potential. Jotunheim had three blood hunting sites, fully stuffed with hunters and patrols. Caelum had a massive Quill forging going on. Pythium and Jotunheim were researching Construction. I was preparing for a long game, and was confident enough that EVEN if Lizzurd wins an advantage early on, I can always outplay him in the long run. Especially with Lizzurd's lbrul approach to leading the team.
But anyway, most of my ideas didn't have a chance to be realized, and here I am. Good game.