I enjoy stage I much more then stage II. Stage II relies solely on good rituals, which is fine, but I enjoy the hunt, the chase and the banter of Stage I (ask Udgard, dst and Cirith, they chased me all over the place in an attempt to get my heads... it was a lot of fun, for them too no doubt.).
It is unfair, alliances do get the one hour advantage, true. But they also have more enemies, and generally get less AP. You can overcome the AP issues with an altered perception of time of course. And I say more enemies as we have to look out for alliance members of the other mind power levels, and b