Ok, I hope I'm not spamming too much here. This is intended as a discussion / ideas thread for strategies with the Leylines race Regency.
Regency is my favourite race. It has a lot of flavour and dirty tricks. However, it's also a challenging race to do well with. But with some practice, I think Regency has lots of potential. After practicing a couple of times, my necromancy skills seem to be improving now.
First of all, some general advice. Regency buildings tend to require little work, but high upkeep. This means that you have to be careful not to climb the tech trees too fast, or you'll run into gold problems. Similarly, the top-level units are strong but quite expensive, so don't build them too early and don't build too many of them.
As another piece of general advice, the Regency can't build hordes of scouts early on, so in the beginning they will miss out on extra income and research from the random resources. A regency player should try to make up for it later, and actively try to capture them from other players.
The good thing about the Regency is that their units complement each other very well. A mistake I made at first was to build only one or two types of units for attack and neglect the rest; the key to succes is to get the best use out of all of the available support units and tools.
So let's go over the units.
Phalanx: Those serve two purposes. Early in the game they offer a good early defense, together with ghouls. The shield skill is especially good, because ranged attacks are the major weakness of the ghouls. Later in the game, they make perfect fodder for your acolytes.
I usually build 4 to 8 of them in the early game (on moderate starting power). However, since the Regency have no building that lowers gold upkeep, their upkeep takes quite a bite out of your gold supply. You can degenerate them, but I would normally advice against it because it makes them weaker and more vulnerable as defensive units. Besides, you can't sacrifice them to your acolytes any more if you do.
Instead, I like to build one or two fortresses and camp them next to my cities. In case of emergency they can move into the city for defense.
For slightly improved defense, start out by building a mausoleum in your best production city and build the phalanxes there.
Ghoul: In the early game their mana upkeep is pretty steep, so I often start the game by disbanding all but one of them. Still, these guys are vital for early defense (or offense). If your opponent is nearby and starts building a legion of swordsmen, it will turn into a nightmare for him. It is also lots of fun if you can 'recruit' a couple of scouts.
The main weakness of ghouls is that ranged attacks, including exorcism, will quick melt them away.
But even later in the game, one should not underestimate them. If you can hide them, cast blindness on the enemy, or turn them invisible, they can still do major damage. They benefit very much from Might of Giants, since it increases their lifedrain. And remember that Spectres can give them another +2 attack. Special note: if you ever see a druid, please send in a hungry ghoul.
Lumberjack: This is maybe the very best unit there is for terrain improvement. Swamp and forest can be turned into plains (4/1/2/0), which is great for both gold and boosting city growth. One of the first things I do is build one of these.
Mentally, I divide my cities into gold and mana cities. For the gold cities, I remove all swamps, jungle, mangrove and pine; for the mana cities I remove all normal forests. If a city has low population, I may even remove some forests that are aligned with the city type. Terrain adjacent to the cities has priority, but even at a distance of 2 tiles it is worth it, especially since you get some free production as a bonus.
When this is done, the lumberjacks can remove annoying swamps that are hindering you on strategically important routes. Once you have captured foreign cities, the lumberjacks get even better. Since you can't produce work in foreign cities, the forests (2/3/1/0) are of no use to you - chop them.
Slaver: If you capture small foreign cities with no buildings, they can't ever produce much for you.. except for slaves.
Acolyte: This is one of the strategic cornerstones of the race. Always have a few of them ready, with fresh meat to sacrifice. Being able to quickly cast a few malicious spells on enemy armies before you attack them is very, very important.
If your opponent uses Sunray or overland attacks, don't forget that these have dampening, too.
Mountaineer: For lack of cheap scouts, the Regency will have to rely on units such as this one. Building towers is quite useful. Besides increasing your sight radius, it protects against cold weather, so this is a nice way of dealing with mines on hills.
Ornithopter: They may look like weak scouting-type units, but are actually surprisingly strong, especially when boosted with Might of Giants. Since they can detect hidden scouts and are strong enough to win most scout-versus-scout fights, use them to take over those resources that the enemy may have taken. And bring them along in an assault, because detection is ever important.
Assassin: Another very important strategic unit. Lots of things are worth assassinating. Kraken, Hero, Warlock, Dragonslayer, Totem Spirit.. they all have a price on their head. In the mid to late game, having Assassins ready in the surroundings of your cities is a vicious way of defending yourself.
Saboteur: As it has Siegecraft, this is one option of dealing with heavily defended cities. If your opponent forgets to build some units with detection, sabotage can ruin his day. For best effect, sabotage multiple large cities simultaneously and watch those buildings collapse when he fails to pay the upkeep. Don't forget to laugh maniacally.
Catapult: This is another way of dealing with heavily defended cities. Bombarding will force the enemy to leave the safety of his city and come out to attack you in the open, where they can be bribed and assassinated.
Diplomat: Bribery and Assassination are a great combo. A diplomat in your city is a great help in defending it. This works especially well against dragons (as those can't be assassinated). Since diplomats are dependent and move very slowly, it is hard to use them in an offense, but not impossible. Some methods to increase their mobility are Degenerate, Storm Run and Ethereal Path.
Spectre: They are a bit vulnerable and move slowly, but can be a great aid in your army. If you can cast invisibility on them that's great.
Necromancer: The Regency healer, of course. Always bring one or two of them along.
Wraith: I have some mental trouble building a unit that can be summoned. Having high resistance and a physical attack, it is a good counter to units with a high resistance, a magical attack and low armor, such as Firewalkers, Stargazers, etc.
Skeletal Shark: So far I haven't played enough island maps to see it at work, but it looks good. Physical stats comparable to the Leviathan, but faster.
Liche: Having at least one or two in your army is a good idea. It makes quick work of tank units with low resistance, such as bladesingers and war machines. Magesight is also nice to have. Casting Jinx can make it more effective.
Daemon: A very fast unit, they can quickly invade enemy territory and capture any badly defended cities. They also add a lot of punch to large assaults.
Now what magic spheres to choose? I have two favourite choices. The most straightforward way, imo, is BBM.
The main reason for choosing BB is blindness. Acolytes make it easy to quickcast and it turns ghouls into real monsters, especially if you add might of giants and maybe a spectre. Later in the game, blindness combines equally good with liches and daemons. Invisibility (M) has the same effect and works against mindshield.
Revelation and Scrying are both very good, as the regency lacks fast and cheap scouts. Golems are a lot of fun for the regency, since they are the only race that can augment them. Skeletons can be augmented and healed. Ethereal Path is an excellent way to help the slower units. The only spells that don't seem to fit in are Mending and Rejuvenation, but all in all this combination of spheres complements the Regency extremely well. An alternative is to replace M with C, for Degenerate, Third Eye and Flicker - the latter two spells are another way to scout more easily.
An completely different approach, but also interesting is EEE. With acolytes, all those damaging spells can be quickcasted.
Ok, that was a long story. I hope to hear more opinions and ideas, discussion.. please disagree with me.
Also, while the description says you gain two gold per other post you own, the way it currently works is actually that each post earns you 1 gold for each post you own (a description error I forgot to report earlier, sorry!). So that makes totals: