Still theory because I haven't tested it, but it seems to me that AV would be a rather nice choice of religions for Malakim and Varn Gosam. To a certain extent, any Spiritual Civ can do some nice things with AV but Malakim w/ Varn have some added benefits for Disciple units. The basic idea is an army of arcane and disciple units.
The key is the upgrade path for Lightbringers and Savants, which can make some strong disciple units, but which can also move into the Arcane path.
Lightbringer -> Savant -> Ritualist
or
Lightbringer -> Savant -> Mage
Any spiritual civ will grant Savants Potency and Mobility. However, by upgrading from a Lighbringer, Malakim can also give them Sentry. It's not huge but when it comes to defending stacks via things like Fireball it can be quite useful.
Another major piece is Varn's Adaptive trait. By the time you get the first choice of traits you should have 2-3 cities with 1-2 Shrines (half price shrines from Spiritual) and be running Priest specialists. Switching to Philosophical should quickly net several Prophets. One can go to the shrine and the others can go to Altar stages.
Malakim can give all Disciple units +2XP from Desert Shrines. With an Altar level or two starting disciple units should have 6 xp easy (Shrine, 1 Altar, Apprenticeship) and probably more like 8-10xp. If not immediately promotable, Lightbringer-Savants will age into Mages quickly. The new Mages will be short on spheres, but they'll have Potency to help them rapidly gain XP. If you promote the Savants through Combat III up to 4th level, your Mages will have CIII, Potency, Medic and Sentry. They won't need Combat promotions so they can spend all promotions on spheres and rapidly expand their available spells.
Another nice feature of AV is Diseased Corpses. They provide a decent melee unit option without detouring from the religion and arcane lines. Later when you can spare time to run down the metal lines they will benefit from the weapon upgrades.
This strategy can use Ritualists' Ring of Fire and Mage spells to bypass the need for siege weapons.
Weaknesses are, obviously, the fact that a major portion of the military is Arcane and Disciple. There aren't many good options for guarding the stacks other than massed Diseased Corpses and assassins will cause problems. Death Mana will be quite useful for summoning stack reinforcements (and for using Liches to maximize Channeling III units later on).
As far as spheres for magic, Elementalism will provide good spells for both offense and stack protection if you can see the enemy coming. It can also provide water mana for Spring on deserts if you want it. Necromancy will be useful for death mana as described above. Divination would be my next choice, as with Life and Mind mana from the palace it won't take much to allow the Tower of Divination for that free tech.
For mid-game military, the religion path provides Profanes and Eidelons. A little later Rage comes off the religion path, allowing Berzerkers. There should also be time by then to divert down the metal path for late-game which improves Diseased Corpses as well as allowing melee units (which upgrade into a bunch of different national units).
Eidolons: You should be able to hit Eidelons mid-game if you focus. Ritualists can, of course, be upgraded to Eidelons so they can benefit from all the promotion stacking from the disciple upgrade paths described above. Or if you have a highly promoted Diseased Corpse walking around, you can upgrade them as well. Medic and March are a really nice combo for keeping on the move, not to mention a Life mage in the stack casting Regenerate on top of that. 30% healing per turn while moving 2, with direct damage that bypasses city defense makes for a heck of a blitz. Picking up Command for the Eidolons should help out some with making sure you can garrison cities as you blitz as well. Since your Ritualists and Mages should be pounding down the enemy for the Eidelons to finish off, they can pick up Command fairly early.
Malevolent Designs for Eidolons also opens up Mardero. He has Channeling III so you could make him a heavy arcane unit, but as a Disciple unit with Channeling III he is eligible for Command III. A 50% chance of converting every defeated unit will be a huge benefit in a blitz campaign as above.
===
It's a work in progress. I'd like to get feedback about improvements - mainly overcoming the weak strength of units early on and assassins or other marksman units later on.
The key is the upgrade path for Lightbringers and Savants, which can make some strong disciple units, but which can also move into the Arcane path.
Lightbringer -> Savant -> Ritualist
or
Lightbringer -> Savant -> Mage
Any spiritual civ will grant Savants Potency and Mobility. However, by upgrading from a Lighbringer, Malakim can also give them Sentry. It's not huge but when it comes to defending stacks via things like Fireball it can be quite useful.
Another major piece is Varn's Adaptive trait. By the time you get the first choice of traits you should have 2-3 cities with 1-2 Shrines (half price shrines from Spiritual) and be running Priest specialists. Switching to Philosophical should quickly net several Prophets. One can go to the shrine and the others can go to Altar stages.
Malakim can give all Disciple units +2XP from Desert Shrines. With an Altar level or two starting disciple units should have 6 xp easy (Shrine, 1 Altar, Apprenticeship) and probably more like 8-10xp. If not immediately promotable, Lightbringer-Savants will age into Mages quickly. The new Mages will be short on spheres, but they'll have Potency to help them rapidly gain XP. If you promote the Savants through Combat III up to 4th level, your Mages will have CIII, Potency, Medic and Sentry. They won't need Combat promotions so they can spend all promotions on spheres and rapidly expand their available spells.
Another nice feature of AV is Diseased Corpses. They provide a decent melee unit option without detouring from the religion and arcane lines. Later when you can spare time to run down the metal lines they will benefit from the weapon upgrades.
This strategy can use Ritualists' Ring of Fire and Mage spells to bypass the need for siege weapons.
Weaknesses are, obviously, the fact that a major portion of the military is Arcane and Disciple. There aren't many good options for guarding the stacks other than massed Diseased Corpses and assassins will cause problems. Death Mana will be quite useful for summoning stack reinforcements (and for using Liches to maximize Channeling III units later on).
As far as spheres for magic, Elementalism will provide good spells for both offense and stack protection if you can see the enemy coming. It can also provide water mana for Spring on deserts if you want it. Necromancy will be useful for death mana as described above. Divination would be my next choice, as with Life and Mind mana from the palace it won't take much to allow the Tower of Divination for that free tech.
For mid-game military, the religion path provides Profanes and Eidelons. A little later Rage comes off the religion path, allowing Berzerkers. There should also be time by then to divert down the metal path for late-game which improves Diseased Corpses as well as allowing melee units (which upgrade into a bunch of different national units).
Eidolons: You should be able to hit Eidelons mid-game if you focus. Ritualists can, of course, be upgraded to Eidelons so they can benefit from all the promotion stacking from the disciple upgrade paths described above. Or if you have a highly promoted Diseased Corpse walking around, you can upgrade them as well. Medic and March are a really nice combo for keeping on the move, not to mention a Life mage in the stack casting Regenerate on top of that. 30% healing per turn while moving 2, with direct damage that bypasses city defense makes for a heck of a blitz. Picking up Command for the Eidolons should help out some with making sure you can garrison cities as you blitz as well. Since your Ritualists and Mages should be pounding down the enemy for the Eidelons to finish off, they can pick up Command fairly early.
Malevolent Designs for Eidolons also opens up Mardero. He has Channeling III so you could make him a heavy arcane unit, but as a Disciple unit with Channeling III he is eligible for Command III. A 50% chance of converting every defeated unit will be a huge benefit in a blitz campaign as above.
===
It's a work in progress. I'd like to get feedback about improvements - mainly overcoming the weak strength of units early on and assassins or other marksman units later on.
