[Baalz]

As far as the map goes, this map and my placement is very favorable to R'yleh in general. To be sure, balancing a map well is a serious headache and its my policy not to complain to the admins who donate their time, but you asked so I'll point it out: I started in a totally secluded water area with the two other water nations at each other's throats, a lot of water territory available and even more secluded islands I can easily hold. Wasn't really boasting when I said being an overlord didn't make too much of a difference - this is just a very favorable setup for R'yleh, who is arguably the strongest nation in the game. Even if I hadn't had the gatestone, teleport/gateway would have been a very early research target...almost all of my expansion was due to my unsupported pretender jumping around and he could have done nearly as well with teleport/cloud trapeze. The real trick was that I can leisurely pick whatever fights I want, bullying whoever I want into ceding easy territory as I'm comfortable that it's totally infeasible for anyone else in the game to attack me. Even at this point of the game I'm pretty sure that there is no nation whatsoever who could in any way pose a real threat to my homelands where I have strong dominion. Basically it's the reverse of what
Squirrelloid faced...