YARG - Yet Another RAND Game [Isokron's Midgard wins!]

[ano]

WraithLord
1) I didn't understand your position as for CBM. This game was announced as no-mod game.
2) As for Ermor and R'lyeh, they should not be put into one basket nowadays, IMHO. I won a big game with R'lyeh once and I must say it was not that overpowered even before it was seriously nerfed in the last patch. Yes, R'lyeh is really powerful in the late game but you have to reach that stage in good position to be successful and when your mages eat all your gold which you don't have because your pop dies like flies... Well, it is really hard to be successful.
Population death doesn't mean a lot for Ermor because undead are not money dependent but it (in my opinion) makes R'lyeh one of the hardest nations to play. I never heard of anyone being successful with R'lyeh after that patch (I mean the games that began after it was released) and I personally think it is the weakest nation in LA now. If we want to ban it for this reason - I'm ok with it but not because it is overpowered. Perhaps it is still playable but I wouldn't want to check it. Really.
Ermor is another thing though. In my current game I allowed Ermor and didn't regret it, but... Ermor is certainly unbalanced and very hard to deal with. And in no-diplo game it will be a real pain. Noone wishes to fight Ermor because the gains are negligible even if you win. And nation who fights Ermor is usually pushed far behind. It ruins the game balance, in my opinion, because you are forced to do things that you would never do otherwise if there were no Ermor at your border. And, of course, Ermor in hands of good player will be death for everyone.
Just an example: as LA C'tis with base dom 8 (+ about 16 temples total) and a temple nearly at every province I'm still being pushed by Ermorian deadly dominion. I have a ton of priests preaching (not an exaggeration at all) and still my dominion at the border never exceeds +3 and sometimes becomes negative. I don't know if it is due to dominion spread bug or something else but it is a real pain even in a game with diplomacy.