Magic Items and Equiping ?

[Boron]

at which point do you start forging items for your leaders ? and what nations are generally good for forging ? i think because on the one hand if you forge many items it is quite time intensive since only 1 item / mage can be forged per turn . and for the more powerful items you have to research quite a bit in construction .
i mostly forged items so far only to increase my casting skills in some magics . so in early / perhaps midgame ( with highest research costs option ) if you go the forging path and encounter an enemy which instead concentrated e.g. on summon spells and used his gems instead for this purpose will your empowered leaders than win against with equal gem costs summons + leaders without magic items ?
and another problem is that in most cases your 1-3 possible maingemtypes which your races mages have as magics have to be used both for forging + summoning / battle magic / rituals and so on .
so if you mainly forge items and your oppenent instead mainly uses his gems the other ways do your well equipped but few leaders than win against your lower quality but more quantity enemies ?