OK so these are my observations from my first (well actually second) Tempest game.

The first game I created has too many lakes so I rerolled and did a normal map (normal difficulty, normal size and 6 factions) with 60% water, 2 continents and no lakes. I still managed to see a bunch of lakes/interior oceans which was really not what I was going for but I pressed on (maybe map generation needs some tweaking). Could be that I chose the chaotic continent shapes as well? I will also add that faction starting positions for this game seem really off. I had most of a continent to myself while the other factions all got bunched together.  Maybe this lead to some of the things I observed with this game.

My save is included so I'll just briefly list what I observed. Maybe it is just how things progressed in this game and because I played the Cultists, but it seemed like the other races were extremely slow to expand. I'm in turn 97 and through extensive scouting recently found where everyone is. The Wild Walkers and Broken Lords seem to have only a couple regions each (they are currently at war). The Broken Lords have a desert region right to the north of them that they should beeline for because its full of Dust but maybe war has them distracted.

The Necrophages are bordering the Morgawr but have yet to scout far enough to see who their neighbors are or to get into any sort of conflict whatsoever (do we have peace-loving Necros again?). 

The Drakken have no made peace or alliances with anyone. The Morgawr are the lowest scoring faction with apparently not much researched at all. To make matters worse for them I have to take one of their regions for my faction quest and considering my wealth and power, I really don't think they will be much of a problem.

I explored a large patch of ocean and have yet to find any Fomorian fortresses. No idea if other factions have found or possess them. All in all it has been relatively boring so far. Maybe map settings are to blame...what is the best setup for maps with lots of ocean?

One last thing. I have a quest which requires me to search a sunken ruin with a 'strong hero of level 4 minimum'. I brought Vaulters my hero to the ruin and still can't fulfill the quest conditions. No idea what is missing or if the quest description is missing something.

Cultists - Turn 97.zip