Nations that seem strong/weak

[Agrajag]

PDF said:
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...

In my test game, with Growth-0 I had 1 mage diseased by the time I managed to forge boots for everyone. And a second mage mute.

Graeme Dice said:
I would never take a growth scale in any game unless I knew beforehand that the game was going to last for at least 100 turns. Otherwise the benefit is miniscule.
...
Order 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, drain 3 with a dominion 10, fire 8 Moloch will expand even faster, and still has good scales. Then you can be capturing three provinces per turn if there's room.

Maybe here lies the problem, you are too used to dom2's death scale, which was almost a no-brainer.
This here is dom3, a whole different beast.