I just thought of a couple of other things:
1. Low indies like 3 would really help to get out and fight your human opponents quickly. And you will likely not be able to use a powerful indy province as a buffer to your enemy ever. On indy level 3, any race with any pretender can mow down indies at will early on.
2. Death themes don't need to be outlawed, for your partners might just dismiss you from the team if you select AE Ermor or, even worse, Miasma C'tis. Let the teams decide what they want to allow among teammates.
3. I think the races should be assigned totally random to avoid fights between the teams for pet races. Once ready, just run a random number generator and assign races to people when the game is full. That also gets people away from their personal set strategies and makes them think a bit.
When I think of more, I will post it.
