[Baalz]

I haven't formulated the universal theory of Bandar yet, but a couple points about them which stand out to me:

You've got some *realy* good national summons, most (all?) of which are holy. True, you can't base your initial expansion on them, but I wouldn't discount taking a strong bless primarily justified by summons. Your tiger riders are pretty respectable at any rate, and of course I doubt I need to convince anybody of the effectiveness of elephants in the opening turns so you don't even need your bless as a crutch initially anyway.

Think about this, I don't remember their names, but if you summon those holy heavy infantry non-commanders and one of those powerful earth mages to lead them, you've got high hp, high armor, high defense, dual blessed, awe carrying guys buffed with legion of steel, strength of giants. The research requirements for this isn't high, you can start fielding them around when elephants become obsolete.

With your summons you gain strong access to earth and water to compliment your default strong astral and nature. Your higher level summons are some of the best SC chasis available, particularly with 4 arms and a dual bless...and they're non-unique so eat all you want!

Note: for Kingmaker in particular clams have been nerfed, but your W/N national summon can forge them and I'm hard pressed to think of a nation which benefits more from lots of astral pearls than Bandar Log.