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[Delta Foxtrot]

Based on playing LA Jomon to turn 60+, here's what I'd do different:
Dormant Celestial General 4A4E. Ok bless for your Ryujin, but it's primarily so that you can forge staves of elemental mastery. You get mages with 210% FAWEN random, so wide but shallow path access. You NEED boosters. Also get S5 at least on your celestial general, S6 if you can afford it. S5 lets you forge rings of sorcery/wizardry. They go well with your shallow path depth.
You don't need high holy score, but it's nice to have decent dom to spread good scales. So 6-8, depending on what you can and want to afford.
Scale wise, I'd say prod-2 is a must, 3 is excessive. Monks really love the magic scale, you can probably make do without it but I'd squeeze in M1-2 regardless. Problem with that is that monks are not your go-to battle mages, so you don't want all of your mages to be them. Growth is unneeded since you don't have blood nor are your mages old. After that it's the usual rut of order and some misfortune for gold. You want some gold scales since your mages aren't exactly economical.

Important here is that your celestial general is there primarily to forge the staves and rings. So you don't want to risk him SC'ing unless it's absolutely necessary. That said, a well kitted celestial general should be able to take the weaker water provinces without issues. But that's something to be aware of. Lot of your lategame power is hanging on your pretender.

[Mindmaker]

Thanks for the scales advice.
I don't think I'll ever like order, except for nations that need lots of money up front. Does a population limit exist?

[E. Albright]

No. If you last long enough, and enjoy a lack of intervening bad events/hostile action/rituals, G3 can leave you with 60k+ in a home province if the game stretches on to 70 or 80 turns. Admittedly, 30 strategically applied gems can reduce a population even that bloated back to starting levels in one turn, but it's nice while it lasts.

[Mindmaker]

God, Blitzes are infuriating. I'll rather stick to PBEM.

[lijacote]

The game's 50% off right now. It's really good, check it out if you haven't already (here's looking at you, k-- lurker)

[Mindmaker]

Advice on EA Abysia pretender design? I know about high Order and Production, but I'm unsure about chasis, paths and the other scales.

[MoLAoS]

Advice on EA Abysia pretender design? I know about high Order and Production, but I'm unsure about chasis, paths and the other scales.

They nerfed scales hard. You can no longer go full heat with Abyssia and get a free 120 points. Kinda ruined shit in my opinion. It might even automatically set your heat scale to 2 heat. You want any scales for resources mainly. I like to run rainbows but you may want to run blessings. A high dominion can be good because you like heat but it really hurts other nations, so you could push your dom around maybe.

[Karlito]

I dunno how well a bless works for Abysia. The Burning One is good, but crazy expensive, and capital only. Like with that resource cost, where your starting location is matters quite a bit for your performance in the rest of the game.

[Mindmaker]

Well I've been reading that you should be only taking blesses if they coincide with some other goal for you you took that path for.
Supposedly they are also crazy good without a bless.

I've read about several sources that recommend a rainbow pretender, but I don't know if I should trust those. Most people seem to dislike rainbow pretenders.

[Frumple]

They've got enough sacred casters (and sufficient astral access besides -- strike that, all of your warlocks and 1/10th your annoited can make shrouds) that a minor earth bless probably wouldn't hurt. Definitely wouldn't suggest going in for a Burning One bless -- beyond the cost of 'em, and the capital-only, they're also slow. Map-move 1 is almost always a terrible thing to be relying on, on the strategic level. Admittedly, most of the rest of your stuff is move 1, too, but it's mostly recruit-anywhere. Lot more flexibility, there.

As for a rainbow pretender, it wouldn't be the worst idea. EA Abysia has pretty terrible spell access. They've got good fire and sufficient blood, but their next highest after that is S2, with everything else (everything else being... earth.) being 1. Having someone that can summon up some casters for, say... air, water, nature, or death, wouldn't exactly be a bad thing and would offer a hella' lot more flexibility for the nation. Sure, you can do a lot with blood, but...

[Mindmaker]

Well in that case all that is left is to figure out how much of each I need.

What about research? Supposedly it's one of their weak points.
Would you take an inspiring research pretender for that?

[tompliss]

I just found that one of their national conjuration produce 5 ETHEREAL soldiers with 5 death gems, and only need F1D1 and Conj2.
they're undead so they need (IIRC) undead leadersheep, but as you might want to craft a few Skull Staffs to let your mages produce them, you'll have a few fitting commanders.
The bad side of this is the need for Death gems, of course.

About raindowing or not... I think you might want something with a magic other than Fire magic, be it a rainbow or not. Blood magic might be good, as you can have blood2 easily, but blood3 mages are only 2.5% of some Old Age Cap-only...

And of course, it is EA Abysia : you have more armor than your enemies, relatively high damage, but nearly no ranged damage.
Armor protection goes well with bonus natural, and a little bonus to strength could let most of your units go for quick combat. So Earth, nature and water magic could all do some nice things to your armies.
On the other had, you have easily accessible F3 magic, so you have some nice basic ranged spells, but it might lack firepower against fire-resistant enemies, wide-spread ones, and a few other specifics ...

One last thing to remember is that all your national gem income is Fire. You may not want to depend that much on gems in magic other than fire.

[Frumple]

T... doesn't look like making skull staves would help you produce those ethereal critters any. Have to have at least base proficiency in a path for a booster to, well, boost.

Honestly, I'm kinda' wonder what's up with those guys. F/D is not something that's common, and EA Abysia seems to have no access to it whatsoever.

[tompliss]

Have to have at least base proficiency in a path for a booster to, well, boost.

Oh. :c

And looking at general summons, there isn't an easy way to get a Fire+Death mage...

[Mindmaker]

Well I'll test a dorman Great Enchantress with A2W2E2S2N2 and 6 Dom 3O3P1M. No bless, but that would be expensive and I don't know what I would be doing with those extra paths anyway.
Gives me some really good booster access and I can still empower her in fire and blood.