[AreaOfEffect]

It is always important to avoid direct comparisons of vastly different units, such as elephants and tiger riders. I would not hesitate to choose elephants for initial expansion, but believe me, when it comes to war I would pick the tiger riders first. This goes double when I'm at war with a nation that uses fear effects or forces MR checks with their spells. This goes triple when I'm fighting Ry'leh. (Though I'd bring an elephant anyhow to absorb a few spells.)

Making direct comparisons between gandharvas and niefel giants is also not a fair comparison. Sacred units tend to have naturally higher moral scores. You put the gandharva at a disadvantage when putting them up against another sacred because their awe becomes almost irrelevant. The gandharvas also have a standard and infantry average move speed, which means they are army friendly and operate best by elevating your regulars. Niefel Giants operate best on their own. Niefel giants are also priced in comparison to giants, meaning they absorb the benefits of being a giant as a national advantage.

Back to what KO is saying, it is important to compare units of a nation to each other and not other nations. Otherwise you discount national weaknesses and strengths. If you compared every infantry unit to Mictlan's infantry then you would conclude that all solidly average units should be priced as 9 gold and not 10. This would cause you to completely miss the fact that Mictlan's national advantage is cheap humans soldiers. Bandar Log has a national disadvantage, which is that all of their units are animals. Give them a unit that isn't an animal, but rather a magic being, and you must account for it.

I don't like gandharvas as a national unit because I think it is unthematic. The point of Bandar Log is that the apes have come to stand on their own. It is the only ape nation that rules itself. The summons imply that the celestial beings now answer to them, not the other way around. If gandharvas are around and are revered by the monkeys then it would logically imply that a gandharva-like commander would naturally follow. Though a faction with gandharva-like commanders and sacreds fighting along side apes already exists, it's called Kailasa.