I've just recently started to fully understand how bad it is with a 7 VP victory condition and all those indy VP provinces laying around. Especially since several nations have good thugs with air magic for cloud trapeze. Many of the VP-provinces have only ordinary independents that can be easily beaten.
It's a little sad, I was looking forward to a long game. I got a good start so I think I would have managed to stay alive a long time.
