Early Research Strategy for EA/LA Mictlan?

[Robert Lawrence James]

Hi!
I have been playing MP locally with friends, and I like Mictlan because of its powerful sacreds, cool summons, and quick expansion potential.

One problem I find is that it has a combination of factors that put it behind in the research race: expensive forts, good research mages are cap-only, need for lots of Mictlan Priests to blood hunt, sacrifice, bless those many small Jagwarrior armies expanding everywhere, and crappy scales so I can get a great bless. That means I can't afford the money or recruitment slots to recruit enough mages with good research. Is this unavoidable and I just have to deal with it and hope for lucky gold events, or rush an enemy to take their forts, or is there a way to improve Mictlan's early research while at peace? The guides on here seem to mostly focus on getting the blood economy going, which is a bit later game than my questions.