[Tuidjy]

Your milleage may vary... but you are most definitely right that some themes
are more powerful than others. Furthermore, some themes are better suited to
different styles of play. For example, I dislike Marignon's basic theme,
because, in my book, they are a bunch of clumsy groundpounders, but I have had
very nice results with Conquerors of the Seas (Pythium light) This comes down
to personnal preferrence - for example, you think that base Ulm is better than
Black Forest, but many would disagree.

No, the races in Dominions II are not perfectly balanced. I dare say that the
best Standard Marignon player would lose to a good Abysia player in a 1x1. But
in big multiplayer games, this has never interferred with my enjoyment.
The uberrace-du-jour gets watched very carefully, and usually comes to a nasty
and sticky end. Of course, the race itself changes. There was a time when it
was Ermor. Today most people think it is Caelum. Both I and my girlfriend
disagree, but I think it is Pythium and she thinks it is Vanheim.

My advice is, find a race that you enjoy playing... if winning is important to
you, you may want to look only at Pythium, Vanheim, Caelum, C'tis, Arcocephales,
but that's still quite a bit, isn't it?