[Cainehill]

Frankly, if you have R'lyeh in the game (or Atlantis), I think you have to presume they're building clams. In addition, the guys gem income was IMO low. Two games I have going on that map where I'm holding less than 1/3, possibly less than 1/4 of the provinces, I have gem incomes of 120-130 a turn, not counting blood, and it's well before turn 84 where he reports having 85 gems as income.

R'lyeh could have had more than that, _not_ counting the income from clams, by using Voice of Apsu, Voice of Tiamat, Akashics, Astral Probing, etc.

(Edit: Looking at the maps, it seems unlikely R'lyeh had 85 "real" gem income a turn, and to be fair, I guess it is difficult for Ulm to do all that well. Then again - he had sages and wizards, so he had full access to site searching spells for everything.)

As Arralen said - different settings could've made for a very different game. 23 independent provinces per player was also high by my standards - 10-16 has always seemed better to me.

And finally, everyone let R'lyeh muddle along for much of the game, as it seems that they went to turn 60 before attacking or being attacked. Not real wise to do that.