I am on the tail end of a Huge map Hobmark campaign. One of my favorite factions in the game, I must say. Having played with Reanimators, I'd say they are in a pretty good spot. Making them library masters in a non-human faction is a very neat trick. And the flavor is great.

Makes me hesitant to suggest another leader, since you have so many as this faction. It's a little crowded, and a little samey. The sameyness is strong though... it makes them versatile. But I think there might be room to make them a little more distinct.

For instance, the Malefic Markmeister, the vampires sired by the Master? They are pretty much clearly your endgame ritual. And they are worth it, just a little underwhelming for being at the end of such a looong tech tree. I think they aught to have something like the ghoul lords do. A unit recruitment in all your bases as long as you have one alive. Something like--
Marksknights:
7 HP, 4 Str, 6 Morale, 1 Armor
Weapons, As hussar, with +1 damage across the board.
Regen(5), battlefast, Shield, +vampire traits.
Costs 10 Gold, 5 Iron, 5 HoG for a set of 5.
.

Maybe restrict them to ancient castles instead of all citadels?

Nice! Glad to hear you are liking the changes/additions to Markgraf. Definitely one of the classes that had many small adjustments in this mod. I think the Markmeisters unlocking a unit recruitment similar to a ghoul lord is another solid concept to help round out the roster.

New ritual for the basic Markgraf:
Find Inheritance: Cast on fortified hoburg. Costs 5 Gold, 10 HoG, and 3 AP. Maps a Ruined Castle anywhere on the map.

With this, the class is less nerfed by not having a ruined castle nearby.

There might be room for a bit of a safety net, but I would think maybe on a level 2 library so that it's not an instant autocast at the start of the game.

I'm still early in planning it, but I also have some concepts for expanding the ghoul and reanimator sides of the faction, while also adding a unique interaction with forests that would replace "Desecrate Forest" for this class to further differentiate them from the necromancer. So while old castle ruins will always be important, this may not end up being necessary due to the other options available.

Well alright! The stars aligned and gave me a cool test game. Player Factions were pretty separated, I had a very easy time on Knight. I mostly relied on Grafted Golems. MAN THOSE GUYS ARE STRONK. Wound up gold-rich, unable to spend, since all my recruits were pretty obsolete.

I got to thinking about how the Markgraf is this pretender to royalty right? So I figure, if you need a new branch for his tech tree, theme it around that?

So I figure, give the Graf something to do to castles--he can use it on a regular castle fine, but use destroyed ones too. That way, he doesn't need to tech up to use it, but it stays relevant.

Here's a pitch for one option:

Found Marksknight Order, 200 gold, 50 iron: Enchant castle or ruined castle. TIle will freespawn "Marksknights" (the vampire ones from my earlier post can be renamed "Black Yeoman")

Meant as like a "one-up" on the Burgher, these guys have armor 3, and are quite elite, for a hoburgh. They probably lose battlefast. In terms of spawn rate, you get a drip of them more than a trickle.

They should eventually be upgradeable to "Marksknights Maelific," gaining vampire traits(regen!).

If you wanted to restrict these guys to after you had the Maelific Markgraf, you could give him the ritual to promote him. If it tested like a lategame feature, you could even put it on his progeny, which will put at the end of the main tech tree.

The spawn could lose their necro rituals and get this instead. (You get a ton of necro list champs in this class)

The Markgraf definitely has potential to have more unique recruits tied to what I'm planning to be various paths with the vampires still sitting soundly as the top tier with their immortality. For necromancer I have already added a sort of "blood knights" obtainable after promoting to a Vampire so the Markgraf will be receiving their own "hog" equivalent.