Thanks for the amazing playthrough, really helps a lot!
I'm in very early game, currently in planning stage for the battle of Yhilin: Wondered if i could research Orcs instead of Essence Shielding without downsides?
Theoretical argument (based on wiki info only, i didn't get to try it yet!): The extra clue in the investigation doesn't seem to do anything (5 clues = bonus, but nothing extra for all 6 clues). During the battle itself, i get 1 more point of chaos from not assaulting the mage tower (orc discipline instead), but if i didn't calculate wrong that's 4 instead of 3 chaos in the end, unless Big Man clone chaos reduction is applied after the battle results: if so this would push me to 5 which is horrible ofc. Assuming its applied before: With -2 from Janine 75+ and -2 from Meghail 100 the end chaos score (4) would should still get reduced to 0 and i get 1 extra VP & 2 extra army size (and some reduced collateral damage, which wouldn't matter) on top.