Wow, HoneyBadger, that's awesome.
If/when I finish my Alchera "trilogy" (look for an "alpha" version of MA Alchera/Aotearoa soon), I'd be interested in collaborating on (really, any) of those.
I know that one of the things I had to "get over" in making EA Alchera was that neither the Australian Aborigines nor the Maori have an "empire building" period in their history. I concluded that that one one of the things I needed to imagine: what
would such an empire have looked like?
Likewise about escaping the "stone age." MA Aotearoa will feature some heavier arms and armor, from trade, but also mixed feelings about their use. In the late era, I plan to have a mix of fully "modernized" units and more mystical "traditional" soldiers, just returned from the dreamtime.
I didn't mean to hijack your thread to talk about my own ideas... you just got me thinking.
A thought: a truly "deep" nation might have some "Deep One" Atlanteans as its most "shallow" units, and the rest would be non-hmost of the rest would be nonhumanoid and blind or have full darkvision. The Deep Ones could be their only immediately land-capable units. This would put them at a disadvantage in most games, but would be an interesting balance for games on "Wrap around Water" and similar mostly-ocean maps (I'm playing EA Atlantis in "Water War" right now, which is why this comes to mind).
my 2c