Thank you for your positive reply. Another thing that occurs to me is that (especially for Life spellcasters, perhaps for all of the Mage class) there should be a way to dispel spell effects during combat, and to remove overland spells on the strategy map, at a cost of mana equal to twice the casting cost of the relevant spell. Also, a Cure spell to remove poisoning and other negative non=magical conditions would be nice, too.

RE: the "shadow path" - you'd need to mod it separate from both existing Life and Death paths, as both of those are exclusively unlocked (i.e. you can only have one or the other) by the choice of Kingdom/Empire.  For instance, if you subjugate a Kingdom sovereign with an Empire faction, you won't be able to increase their existing level of Life magic.

This also affects which type of shard you get for Life/Death shards.  Lots of Life/Death magics are much less effective if you don't have any of the corresponding shards.

Nerf requests....Kraxais Betrayal ability seems overpowered. It should ONLY have a chance of success equal to the Unrest level (for example, it will work on a city with 25% Unrest 25% of the time, and regardless of success or failure, the money is spent anyway) and a faction's Capital province should NOT be vulnerable to this ability. As it stands, it allows someone to capture your last city, if it is your Capital, without firing a shot. Your Capitol should only fall to actual Military might  NOT Betrayal.

Surrender: When the sovereign of a faction surrenders, it makes no sense for the cities and resource structures under their control to disappear. Instead, each city should have a percentage chance of joining the faction the sovereign surrendered to. Any attached resource structures should also join the faction if the unrest check succeeds. Any cities that do NOT join the faction should be turned into a Neutral city that functions like a minor faction that continues to generate research , giildar and mana, as well as build improvements and  turn out units, based on the original factions behavior. (However, this minor faction should NOT produce pioneers.) These neutral towns should be able to be bribed to join another faction, with the same rules specified in a previous post. If the bribe is successful, the city, resource buildings, and any units they created joins the faction, and they turn over any research, mana and/or Gildar they have generated and still have (in the case of Gildar).

Suggestions for Undead race...undead, being without emotion or passion, should be immune to fear effects. Also, given that they are not "alive" in the usual sense of the word, they should be immune to Death magic, the Reap ability (they have no life force to steal)  and be 100% immune to Cold / 50% resistant to Lightning, as being bone they have no soft tissue to damage.

Edit from original message:

Female Undead spirit units should take damage normally from fire, but half damage from lightning and none from cold, as they are not material creatures and do not have a physical body to damage.  Also, skeletal undead should be immune to damage from daggers, spears and other piercing weapons as they have no soft tissue to damage. They should take half damage from slashing weapons like swords and axes. Blunt weapons such as clubs, maces, etc. however should do full damage. As a counter to this physical resistance, Life spells should be created. For example , a version of Sunder called Holy Bolt could be created for champions and sovereigns with at least Disciple in Life Magic spell books that does Holy damage for 2 points/level +2 for every life shard the faction possesses but can be resisted by the attacked undead unit for half damage. Those who reach Mage status should have access to Holy Strike, a spell that damages ALL undead on the battlefield for 1 point/level +1 per life shard possessed by the faction which can't be resisted. Life Arch Mages should have access to the awesome Dust to Dust spell, which takes one tactical turn to cast and causes all Undead units on the battlefield who fail to resist to be instantly destroyed. With magic items, Accessories that cause weapons to do extra Holy damage and Holy versions of weapons such as the Boreal Blade that add Holy rather than Cold damage should do full damage to Undead spirits and ignore the penalty to physical damage of skeletal Undead.

As a corollary, those Undead Champions and Sovereigns with Death magic spells books should have reversed version of these spells and items that use Death magic for the same damage versus opponents that are alive. Elementals, Constructs and other Undead units however, should be immune to these spells and items.  Also, the Death Arch mage mass kill spell should be called Death Knell that each unit that fails its resistance check and is slain has a flat 25% of that unit returning from the grave after the combat under the control of the victor as the same unit but with an Undead template...this unit has the same racial qualities as the original unit (healing abilities, and any Life spells books, however, are lost) and the unit is considered to be Undead for all spells and conditions that apply to them. Your thoughts?