Caelum strategies

[SeditiousCanary]

So here is an e-mail I sent my playing group. I'm posting it here because I'm just stumped.

"I've played a few games to 70 or just past and I have stopped because I wasn't going to win. I couldn't make troops fast enough and stopped earning money (less than 200 a turn anyway).

I think the thing that I find the most frustrating is I'm not learning anything new. I find that I always build the cheapest troops, the leaders with the most research and far too many buildings. It stands to reason I might learn more about the game if I changed my approach, but I can barely hang on as it is. If I made more expensive troops, I don't think I would make it past turn 15-20. I can't make money to save my live short of building clams for every commander I have and using them to make cash. Near as I can tell, the only good magic items are:

Clams
Anything that feeds troops
Anything that bumps your research up

Everything else seems to be a waste. Armor it pointless since my leaders cast spells. Weapons are the same."

What am I missing? I see no obvious way to improve my game. Are there combos that work well together of spells, troops, magic items?

Thanks