Congrats Calmon, you scored one for the hebrew gods
I played Abysia and had a horrible game.
First I chose "thematic" scales for Aby, D3,T3,L3 after reading Baalz's thread about the merits of T3,L3 and considering and testing this setup (in tests it worked nicely since I got lots of gold events).
In the actual game these scaled proved to be Aby's downfall. I had literally no gold income, I couldn't recruit armies and mages, couldn't build castles. Then I was attacked by Pythium who by all rights should have made quick work of me -- except that he didn't, I'm not sure how and with what exactly but I managed to drive his forces away and conquer his capital (This one with Ctis help, now attacking Pythium as well).
It was obvious to me that A- Ashdod will win and that B- I could do nothing about it. Now I do think the outcome could have been different had Pythium not attacked me, Ctis not attacked Pythium, R'lyeh not attacked Ctis and instead all would have dog piled on Ashdod (Including, TC, Ulm and Marig). Actually I was kind of expecting the dog piling to happen, except that it didn't and as I came to understand that it won't happen so I realized that Ashdod wins. I had also guessed Calmon is playing Ashdod
MA Abysia was ruined by old age mechanics and the "thematic" D3 scale doesn't help much (since its counter to what Aby needs). What a shame, this was once a solid nation.