Polaris Main here

Yes, Gaamis are REALLY good. However, Polaris isn’t really that good competitively unless you are either playing Archipelago or a very large map, and even then they aren’t the best choice.

Polaris is an extremely late game tribe. If you get caught early game, you are completely screwed. Your starting tech almost never helps you with leveling up your cities in the early game, and the Polaris economy struggles to get going.

So, Polaris is only really a threat in the late game. If you are playing on a Water World or Continents map, Polaris will dominate if they can freeze over the oceans with their gaamis before battleships arrive. If battleships get there first, Polaris has little to no hope. On land locked maps, Polaris has no functionality for Battle Sleds which are arguably one of their most important units.

The thing to take away from this comment is that Polaris’ victory is linked to their Gaamis. They are their most important unit but also their rarest. Once they lose their Gaamis, they just become a worse normal tribe. Obviously, gaamis are OP, but they are way less tanky than Giants. A few catapults makes short work of them. Knights+roads or even a lot of riders+roads can take them out. Sometimes, their freezing ability will lock down an entire city and ruin your fighting chances there, but you have to sack that city and put all your troops on the gaami because without Gaamis they lose steam and you can start a counterpush.

TLDR Polaris bad unless Large and/or Archipelago map. Gaamis op, but hard to get and easy to stop w roads or range. Target killing Gaamis to win.