[DrPraetorious]

Having all their units sacred is my personal interpretation of the relevant protestant religious notions; it is a defining national characteristic, obviously not every nation/religion should have this feature.

I actually do not think it is unbalancing - yes, you can get ridiculous prot with an E9, but any earth nation can do that with their heavy infantry at Constr 3, which you'll have by the time recruiting out of multiple castles becomes a big issue. You can't recruit any more sacred heavies out of your capital than anyone else can.

So I tried various penalties but in my playtesting found they were not needed.

So far, the best build that I've come up with is an awake, W9 blue dragon with Order-3, Prod-2,Misf-3,Drain-2. Station a bunch of wonderworkers in a single research province - their heresy will eliminate the drain dominion, and the dragon lets you conquer enough provinces early to get recruitment through your absolutely huge resource costs.