You seem to have missed alot.
The Sidar play fundamentally different from most other civs. Many things that suck / are a problem for most other civs are good / are actually beneficial for sidar
(protracted Wars preferably with many battles involving huge stacks,
unusual civics for long time,
Religion-hopping (preferably during golden Ages as everyone else of course),
getting rid of the civ-hero early for the shrine of the champion (usually by Waning him), having the barbs aggroing on you big time and keep you as their target, using fifty units when fifteen will do no matter the goal you try to aceive, expansion not a focus. territory being rather trivial.)
Most important Civics for Sidar: Theocracy, Apprenticeship, Conquest (you'll want your units to start with as much XP as possible. Thats very! important to get many Shades fast and reliably. And also provides massive military benefits obviously.).
Most important Wonders: The specialist boosters (so the Great Library, Theatre of Dreams, the Guild of Hammers, Altar of the Luonnotar), Buildings that give XP to units on building (Form of the titan, Ride of the Nine Kings, Altar of the Luonnotar Command post from great commanders) and last but not least Wonders that help with your chosen victory (so the hall of Kings and Sylvians Perfect Lyre for
-victory)
Buildings that improve Specialists are interesting in General (civics honestly not so much in my experience. Unless there is no choice more interesting in the same category.).
At their heart the Sidar are a builder Civ (In terms of what victories they lean to) good for barb / hostile heavy-maps with the very start being the decider of how your game will go.
After the first 3-5 Shades are in you will be set. Usually by midgame your economy should start to rise well beyond the stratosphere and most limits usually encountered (and if your early game runs well your midgame may well be quite a bit earlier...)
The only difference is that their builder part is all about their units.
So instead of using your usual builder mindset you should view all your units as potential shades (its best to exclude some good Tier 3 and 4 + national Units from that but that's actually advanced strategy for sidar.)
Given that premise most buildings become rather trivial. Compare the cost of even the cheapest commercial buildings (elder council, market, obelisk) to that of the cheapest units (warriors, scouts) and you'll see where i am heading.
Even if on average just one of the 3 Warriors will make it to a shade (later that becomes more advanced units as you can't build more than one Unit a turn... Its worth building cheaper units as Sidar. But it doesn't make sense to build a Warrior a turn when you could just as well use a champion each turn.) that one still provides three to four times as much bang for the same buck roughly (okay its 60 hammers to 75 but still you get the picture...
). Without the tech-requirement. Most importantly though they stack without a limit.
Exempt from this are only buildings which offer a relative boost (this is especially true for beakers + if you aim for a
-victory) because they also boost your shades / normal specialists respectively...
Doesn't mean of course its worth to ignore that first elder council for your first academy.
But i think you get the overall picture and that I'm not talking in absolutes here...
That's the first thing many people who think Sidar suck get fundamentally wrong. You don't just build units for military. You build those as the future heart of your economy in addition! to your military so they are a direct substitute for most economic buildings.
The second more subtle thing many of these get wrong is that they think any unit is shaded no matter what.
You still of course build and keep! a military for fighting and getting highly experienced way beyond the point of Waning (especially if you aim for one of the more militaristic victories...)
Finding the right balance here can sometimes be hard since a free augumented great person (since Sidar specialists are already boosted by default + usually in addition by other things like Wonders.) is very temting. But a high-level ghost is just to precious to Wane.
Another thing is to delay Waning until a campaign is done if at War. Don't just Wane half your military in the middle of a running conquest. (Nothing wrong with doing so when you accomplished the goals you set yourselves in the current tide but not jet finished a given war. Just be cautious that you don't Wane so much of your military that your foe can wrestle you down. Gather intelligence here whenever possible. Hawks do wonders here which shouldn't be surprising.)
One of the few civs that has a solidly working non-reload deity strategy i know of (especially on huge maps).
(For me that is cultural victory somewhere between Turn 300 and 400 normal speed with the general outline being to adopt CoE and go overcouncil + get global Liberty passed as early as possible. Then converting everyone you can who is close to you (especially powerful neighbors) to overcouncil + friendly relations and then sail home your victory by spamming great Bards everywhere while no one who can possibly threaten you will ever declare war. Leading Wars where you want them, when you want them, the long you want them without much risk. Trading techs the way you want them. You can still milk those "allies" (
) for shades with CoE Recon-Units. Especially effective with the Sidar Ghost Assassin UU. Which can hide, search for easy prey, then strike and declare nationality immediately afterwards. Rinse, repeat until Wane is possible. Nox Nocturnis helps greatly here since it expands that ability to most other recon-units as well...)
Another things which might be hard to spot is, that for sidar most military lines are very solid.
Mounted due to high withdrawl,
Melee thanks to early courage + blur + enchanted blade,
arcane and divine for the enhanced national limit for support spellcasters (usually 2-3 sensibly. You'll still want at least 1 slot for your shades.),
Arcane because at the time you'll get sorcery it shouldn't be to hard to insta-produce Mages (10XP should be possible out of the gate for Sidar Adepts if you get lucky...)
divine because of easy free XP gain (still true but less so for arcane units),
archers because of easy access to flaming arrows and because of the way the defensive stirke mechanics works + the newly opened tech-path for the Archery tech.
Also there is a rather solid basic guide in the FFH2 manual. Have a look there. It covers most of the basics.
Caste System might be a neat lategame alternative for Sidar to Apprenticeship (i civic i switch away from early when playing other civs.) but i still stick to it most of the time even when going for cultural victory. But that might be a tactical mistake.
Most often than not at that stage in the game though its inconsequential anyways.
When fighting low-XP Champions with out-of-the-gate high-xp Druids, Shadows, Beastmasters, Knights, Archmages, Immortals, High Priests and the likes (usually more than one of those in addition to that...) one doesn't really has to play by efficiency. Its more akin to squashing bugs on masse.
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