Oh things are always clearer in hindsight, no worries on not thinking of everything.
Perhaps 10 would be too harsh, I don't really know. My thinking was that water nations are at a significant advantage if they're allowed to stay almost completely in the water and they're (with the possible exception of EA R'yleh) at less of a disadvantage on land than any land nation is in the water so it makes more sense to force them onto land than to force land players to fight them in the water. Since land nations tend to avoid picking fights with the water nations until late game they have the leisure to cherry pick the land fights they want to engage in. The competition on land in Perpetuality seemed to be *much* stronger which I'm sure was in large part due to the province count, but part of it was just that there were more hungry players, more borders to defend, and more scheming. Ah well, I was thinking about trying to snag MA R'yleh this time around anyway, dunno what I'm complaining about. Makes sense to try it with an even count to see how that works out.