Oops! Sorry about the Aspara/Dakini mess up: I had just checked the turn result very quickly before going to sleep.
I'm very, very sorry about how long it took to send you that skull legowarrior: I did send you one as soon as I possibly could. In fact, Construction is actually the first thing I've reached level 6 in... My top research speed was around 210 RP, and that lasted for maybe 2 turns since that's the time it took in between finishing off Machaka and panicking at Bandar Log's temples. I had started making some Skull Mentors, but I only ended up with 3 of them since I had to trade away everything to Oceania to buy some Nature gems. I greatly feared Mind Hunt, and getting Astral Kitsunes was my topmost priority... I ended up with one Astral Kitsune on the first turn of the Bandar Log war to protect my capital, and a second one the turn after to sneak around the northern army... That one did actually get 2 astral points, so it's been extremely useful. One kitsune got air magic, and it was my first air mage (even though I have decent nation-only summons...) so I did a tri-trade to get a bag of wind for her. It's definitively proven useful!
But yeah, back to research... During the Bandar Log war, my research speed was usually around 120rp per turn. I just never could afford to even have a big core of researchers. Mages were bought and sent to the front all game long since they were desesperately needed every single turn, and the few Bakamono Sorcerers I had at home always caught diseases and were busy either site searching with spells or crafting stuff. My highest research was Evocation at 7 for Storm of Thorn for my nature Uba, and I was aiming for Frozen Heart to counter the Zmeys for next research goal. Since my anti-Tartarian Squad with the storm staff that failed stupidly due to the staff making them miss all their Dust to Dust (and then they decided to switch to Decay...), I had a grand total of 37rp last turn. I didn't lose the mages, but 37rp at that turn isn't terribly fun!
Regarding Oceania's size... Damn! On the north west continent, I pretty much had spies that scouted every T'ien Ch'i province, and they died one single step away from Oceania's lands... So I had assumed that the North continent was all T'ien Ch'i beside maybe a few lands. On the southern part of the equation, I had a spy 1 step away from the southern continent... So I would have known next turn, but it obviously wouldn't have changed anything. I really value information, but T'ien Ch'i just screwed over my scouting attempts on the western side. If at least one of my western scout had reached Oceania's lands (I nearly sent some assassin to scout due to their better sneak scores but I figured that diplomatically it wouldn't be a good idea if she's caught) I would have been more wary of Oceania... But realistically-speaking, beside trying to convince T'ien Ch'i and Ulm to unite against them, I couldn't do anything either way. Our borders consisted of a single province, and beside trying to slooowly go down the river, I couldn't fight them. Plus, the army going downriver would be in stupidly large amount of danger since there'd be no retreat paths anywhere ever since I didn't own any of the river banks. Thanks for telling me what you were using all the water gems I sent you: I was genuinely curious
It's been a great amount of fun, thank you very much everyone!