Nations with weakest troops

[AreaOfEffect]

Micah, I feel that the Master of Names invalidates your entire argument regarding Bogarus' research potential, particularly with any sort of Magic scale.

Edit: Actually, It appears the gold/rp ratio is roughly the same for both. However, the master of names is slightly better. They are both in fact better then half the nations of their age. If gold is your limitation, may I suggest an awake pretender (either a rainbow or SC) and reach for Evocation 3 as early as possible. I'm sure you could expand quite nicely with a batch of kite shield units set to hold while a Starlet cast fireball repeatedly. Then you could also use the starlets to actively search for magic sites. I've practiced a very similar strategy with EA Ermor and it seems to work out quite well. The indies are easier in my opinion as well for late-age.

This assumes a normal research game of course. I imagine this would be harder for the original poster to accomplish.