It's too early to think about tournament/spire mana requirements being in the middle of orcs. You will have a whole woodelves chapter to gain new mana producers from events and rebuild your city.
When I started this thread it had been years when I had gone through the orc chapter and my only thought back then was to speed ahead from chapter to chapter. But I had memories that the orcs created some trouble and so I asked more info from other players... and got it. So I was able to plan ahead. As I said I got lucky when it came orcs, I already had a building which after upgrade solved the orc problem (for now).
So now I'm doing the same with mana, I have gotten useful information -
thanks
- and now have something which will help me in the (not so distant) future. I'm not loosing sleep over some angle of this game, just this time I'm taking it slower and trying to put some thought into it.
I've been playing this for years now, just trying to squeeze some more fun from this game. Later chapters have been a disappointment to me, so now I'm looking into earlier game with some "back to basics" attitude.