[Belcarl]

When it comes to EA R'lyeh pretenders I always try to have atleast W1A1 on my pretender, so I know I can forge Amulet of the fish for my Mind Lords.

Since Mind lords gets the Enslave spell for free, I usually wait with researching Thaumaturgy. Instead I go for Conj 4 to get the Voice of tiamat spell ASAP. After that Const 4 to get Amulets for the Mind lords to secure the success of any land campaigns. This also gives you acess to Banes (asuming you have D2 on someone) and some decent Thug equipment.

For some reason I really like the Hidden in Snow spell (Ench 6) with EA r'lyeh. It branches out the nations magical paths and gives decent mindless chaff. It is however not a research priority.

Get A4 on your pretender and Const 6 to forge staff of storms to stop enemy fliers and missile troops. This usually works better for the other R'lyeh ages, since most of your missile troops uses mind blast on land. But since you lack any kind of Bowmen you might aswell stop enemy archers/flyers.

Late into the game you will want Gateway researched, since your logistics with Loboguards and Shamblers will be a pain otherwise.