[Shangrila00]

Honestly, not a whole lot. Patala used to be super good at clamming, and was a hidden blood nation thanks to its access to the efficient Dakini. Combined with really good national summons in both astral and blood (other people have to Wish for Rudras and Mandehas), a Patala given time to both clam and build up its blood economy is unstoppable.

In CBM though, clams are gone and Dakinis got nerfed. With that, astral summons are pretty much unuseable, and it takes forever to build up a blood economy. Pretty much all Patala still has going for it are its really good for the LA cap only mages. There are some neat late game tricks they can pull like teleporting Earthquaker with enough hp to survive, but being cold blooded, they aren't actually useable in battle late game. People talk about their communion potential, but they are no Arco, Marignon, or Bogarus. Dinky S1 communion slaves need to be present in huge numbers to not die from the high level earth and water spells you want Nagarishis to cast. Fortunately, your enemies are likely to solve the problem for you by casting Wolven Winter and making your communion masters keel over simply from encumbrance before they can kill your slaves.

I'd actually say Patala is reasonable early. Those strong cap only mages means Patala dominates early game battle magic. Rust mist and a horde of markatas eats heavily armored elites. Strength of Giants on light Bandars gives surprisingly decent archers that are also quite capable in melee. CBM also gives them pretty solid but cold blooded and cap only sacreds. Eventually though, someone will be both able to attack weak monkey MR and cast wolven winter, and then Patala would be screwed until really late when the blood summons start showing up in number.