[Shangrila00]

Patala is pretty much the ideal target for a missile nation. No access to air magic, no shield bigger than a buckler, and only troops with heavy armor worth recruiting are your cap only sacreds which happen to be cold blooded. And you can forget recruiting those if you don't take high production, which is such a waste considering how awful the rest of their heavy troops are. Basically there are only 2 national non sacreds worth recruiting: the light bandar apes, and the markata, and both only get good once you get buff and support spells, and both have easy counters. The longbows have poor precision and double the price of other archers, and elephants are entirely hit and miss, especially without good high morale troops to hold them like Arco has.

Patala is like a weak EA nation that somehow made it into the LA. You are so capital dependent you are done if someone locks it down, since your best noncap mages that can keep up with your armies are just S1. And those Nagarishis look a lot better than they actually are. No good crosspath spells once rust mist stops being great, so all those different scattered paths don't actually make them much better in battle than a mage half their price with most their magic in just one path. Patala's got pretty much one thing going for it, and one end game strategy. They have heroes with blood, and good blood summons, including the Dakini which can blood hunt.