[HoneyBadger]

Thematically, I love EA R'lyeh. It's my favorite nation, as far as role-playing goes. In practice, however, it's a big dud.

Yes, you've got nice SCs-nice and expensive-but not much else, and the SCs are difficult to use compared to many, because you can't upgrade them with items.

Your commanders, other than aboleths, are pretty sucky, you've got no national melee to back up your magic missle troops, and you're in the water. You've got nice tramplers, but they quickly become obsolete.

Yes, if you survive long enough, you can become very strong, but that can be said of lots of nations, if not all of them. They certainly don't have the ultimate end-game of later R'lyeh.

The position you start at is abysmally weak, and you don't have a fast track to power, like say Mictlan does.

Your one hero isn't even that great, nor are your Pretenders.

The free spawn you get are fine, but they do exactly 0 damage and on top of all that, your priests are immobile and you've got weak sacred troops upon who's shoulders a strong Bless is almost completely wasted.

And where are your national spells? I can't even remember them having any.

Finally, I forgot to mention that they lack the one true defining quality of R'lyeh. No Voidgate! If they had a Voidgate-and commanders with the skill to summon from it without going all "quirky"-they'd be a good, solid nation.