[The Panther]

The sloth 3 thing is normal for many pretenders. That is because you can overcome it with high admin castle or use low resource troops like mages and some of the sacreds.

Turmoil 3, on the other hand, is a killer. Even with luck 3, you still get those horrible bad luck events far too often. Finding 5 air gems in a mirror 3 times, erecting an extra 10 PD in a random province, and getting a bunch of free militia somewhere does not even come close to making up for losing 1/4 population in your home province early on. Plus turmoil 3 kills your income and you can barely afford mages at the crucial begining of the game.

The scales are not all that well balanced, but this has been discussed in the forum before. Order and magic are, in general, worth more than the other scales.