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Great writeup Catwalk, a bit messy but very informative! At first I was wondering why you put such an emphasis on Just Cause but then I remembered that Dwarves can't build Parthenons - so keeping unrest low is an important point.

As for your thoughts about the spellpicks you would take if you would play this map again I have a question: Does the mod lower the number of spellbooks needed for choosing common spells? Because when you play version 1.31 you need at least two spellbooks in a realm to choose one common spell. If you only have one spellbook in Life it is potluck whether you get to research Just Cause at all. You might not have the spell available during the whole of the game. But I often find that Just Cause gets dispelled - so I try not to rely on it too much.

Word of Recall is nice but I wouldn't pick it as a starting choice. For me the hardest part of the game is shortly after the start - especially if there are other wizards on the same continent. So I tend to pick cheap but useful spells. For instance Phantom Warriors are very cheap to summon in battle. Hellhounds are cheap to summon globally. I do not go for very expensive spells early on. Stone Skin is cheaper than Holy Armor (and is half as strong - but still worth it - only costs 10 Mana when cast in battle). I do want something that I can use early on. Later in the game there will be all kinds of spells available anyways. Resist Elementals only costs 25 to cast globally and only costs 5 Mana to cast in battle.

Regarding the new costs of picking things at the start I do not think Dwarves are the strongest race in the game. So I disagree with making them the most expensive one. They definitely are stronger than Gnolls or Barbarians though. Also I do not think that the magic realm of Life is that much broken. Life spells are very expensive - so it is hard to get cumulative effects out of them. Sorcery is just as strong actually - and is cheaper. But you need more spellbooks to make the most out of Sorcery and Life.

You did not seem to have many enemy spellcaster heroes in the fortress cities. I often find when the enemy wizards have three or four spellcaster heroes in their home cities that hell breaks loose on the first turn of the battle. For instance if their master wizard casts Wrack and the other wizards cast other strong spells than they can quickly reduce 9 stacks of Hammerhands to rubble before they even reach the city walls.

Using Warbears just for Pathfinding is an interesting idea - never thought about that. But if you compare their melee performance with that of Hellhounds you will find that Hellhounds give you just as much bang as Warbears - for half the price and half the upkeep. And Hellhounds can attack flying units.