Isn't it "Majere"?

FYI, I lose buildings all the time with the Master Scout trait.  Aha!  Perhaps that's what I should do with all the cheap pioneers--if I park a group on the shards and stables I want to protect will the roaming monsters leave them completely alone?  (This is typed tongue-in-cheek.)

The only OP trait he has atm is Master Scouts. I honestly do not see how you could think +10% research OR 2 free techs are OP. The only OP thing about binding are 9 stack Cyndrum demons, and they are incredibly hard to get unless you babysit them hard. He also has one of the more constraining weaknesses in the game with no armor selected. His units will be ripped apart by any other faction.

Auto combat does all kinds of weird. One case is your Sov will not take damage unless everyone else dies.

With the way I play no armor doesn't matter either, but most people rush 9 stack units with massive armor and damage.

I didn't say all his abilities are OP.  I said he has ALL the OP abilities.  There is a logical difference.

And "no armor" isn't a constraining weakness when combined with his other traits, because he could win in less than 40 turns on Hard.  I'm not sure I would have even researched leather armor by then.

MiamiBigAl, he does not have all the OP abilities, he is missing enchanters

I've never really used steal spirit Kongdej. What is your usage and strategy with that spell, if you don't mind sharing?

The path tomes from enchanter are nice, but they're not its main strength.  The arcane monolith is what makes it shine in my book.  The ability to clear the enemy's outposts and place your own on the same turn.  The ability to stick a monolith on top of fertile land, and tell neutral pioneers to take a hike.  The ability to stick a monolith on a choke point, and deny passage.

Not to mention using them with cloud walk to teleport all over the map, or drop friendly territory only spells on the enemy!

That said, while I think that the faction abilities are not close to being balanced yet, I give the devs a lot of credit for at least making a number of them qualitatively very different. The difference between, say, slave lords and binding, is a lot more interesting than "Magnar gets +10% to production, Reslon gets +10% to research", which is the extent to which many games differentiate factions.

Now thats a use!!

The other stuff is just half-decent uses, since I like to use my mana on other stuff as well, I do like the mana economy in this game, tons of sheize to use mana on, less to use all the other resources on, I always trade away iron, crystals and influence so my economy is well better balanced off.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I agree that using tactical spells usually means "oh no, I forgot my defenses!", but monolith+ cloud walk is a pretty potent strategy- just wait till your enemy's army is on the march, swoop your ass-kicking/bubble-gum-chewing sovereign into the friendly culture space you just created, grab/raze lightly defended cities, and still be back home in time to crush the invading army. High mana cost, sure, but it lets players leverage one of their biggest strengths (intelligently leveled, equipped and commanded champions) against the AI offensively and defensively at almost the same time. Imho, it doesn't seem that similar to casting tremor.

Also, cloud walk is just plain wonderful, especially when completing epic quests. I love being able to avoid hammering the enter key over a dozen long late-game turns of walking across the map!