Editing Dominions (section)

====Mekone, Phlegra====
Sparta 300-Cyclopean side of Greece, with a good backstory and decent unit build, and actually "ascended fanon" from a mod called Arga Dis for the third game. All Spartans are Giants bigger than Jotnar, and have a heavy backstory of hating all Gods. They have a hilariously funny missile unit who is basically a nude olympist who throws bronze discs without breaking aesthetics. The rank-and-file (chaff units) are Helotes, state owned human slaves, and Krypteia, slave murder season is a game mechanic. Still, the giants allow their humans to be freed with enough combat service and give them good living standards(another game mechanic, Helotes leveling up get more upkeep and remove slave status), so it's hard to find a decent pragmatic villain faction like this. Their national spell is Gigantomachia, which starts to scare all enemy Gods' believers, increase giant training rate and make all weapons capable of harming enemy divine creatures easier. Their capital province has the Cyclopes, who increase metal production and help you steamroll the enemy with giant hoplites. 

They are hit with the ugly-retard stick in Middle Era and become Phlegra. Utterly fucking deformed and mentally unstable, all Gigantes are now disheveled, potbellied retards who hit hard but are armed with sharp sticks. Humans are treated like shit, no hope of freedom and no decent living standards, and horrible equipment. On the other hand, human opressors, descendants of rogue Theurgs of Pythium are true rulers of the Phlegra. They mastered the art of enslaving mages using slave collars that turn unfortunate slaves into perfect communion batteries. Powerful (but potentialy suicidal) communions, good crafting, cheap numerous and solid line troops and one of the best supercombatant chassis in the game are all strong points of MA Phlegra.

Everything's even more fun in late ages. The oppressive Tyrants just disappeared, well deformed spartan giant ones anyway. Cyclopes, far less skilled and civilized than their ancestors, became new head honchos of Phlegra after the human rulers needed their help with a rebellion. Oppressors still rule from the back seat, though a bigger back seat now, whispering "advices" to the cyclops rulers who run the military and the smithing business. After years and years of experimenting, the human rulers mastered the art of crafting magic slave collars, exceptionally strong and brave slaves are now "promoted" to unbreakable cannon fodder controlled through magic, and magical neck laden explosives. But that is not all...fun begins after ~2 years in game, when the volcano in your capital explodes, killing thousands, and then THEY return... You thought hobo Gigantes were bad? I present you Laestrygonians, titanic monstrosities of scales and hatred. Basically they are the -again- losing Gigantes with *extra* mutations, locked up under the mountain until it breaks apart so that they can blow off some tardrage steam. Off the scales stats, combat caster traits, abnormally powerful fear aura, access to the best magic paths for supercombatants usually makes them most powerful unit on the battlefield, as well as being [[Cheese|water-breathing, boulder tossing, hair and -twice- legstriking giant with "berserker" trait, a sack of boulders and a giant log]], easily steamrolling every neutral in the vicinity. The downside is Laestrygonians kill the province population, completely damaging your infrastructure by mere existence.(latest update really nerfed them though, an irate lizard shaman whacked my berserking Enceladus with a simple mace)

Mechanically, LA Phlegra has the same strong points as MA counterpart, with even more focus on powerful supercombatants, and more manageable middle-grade giants that don't murder population randomly. And even their weedy human slaves are decently outfitted, there's crossbows for heavy duty armor breaking, supported with unbreakable magic controlled soldiers and Mouflon cavalry, basically giant sheep cavalry that provide milk on the go, so Phlegra is a serious powerhouse. Of course, you can always turn it up to eleven by casting Gigantomachia and recruiting the Laestrygonians as foot soldiers, 3 giant per turn to make the rank-and-file even more [[Cheese]]...Provided you can deal with the population killed by said giants.

Oh, the Laestrygonians are led by their first Lae- fuck it, Legsnake dude (Maybe Laestriwhatever's legsnake for Greek, sounds similar) Enceladus, who is himself an even beefier, crazier, faster Legsnake.