[Norfleet]

The assassination thing is probably one of the easiest ways to expand as R'lyeh early game: Forget about building all those troops, just pile up money, crank out temples, build forts, priests, researchers.....and Star Children.

4 or 5 Star Children and a cheap scout can wipe out any Indy province. Have the Star Children enter a province and assassinate all the commanders, then the lone scout can take the entire province unopposed. Attrition is minimal, and Star Children are cheap, yet deadly. Considering that R'lyeh normally faces a gold crunch, this is way cheaper than trying to build normal troops. As R'lyeh's troops are primarily gold-based almost to an extreme, and gold piles up in your treasury, you should have little difficulty conjuring up a flash mob when you finally meet real opposition.