"Yes, because your mages and even your Gifted get Chosen and then die before they have a replacement-number of children.  In one sense it would seem easy enough to fix, with the right sort of policy, but then the other gods' pet countries would move against you and Valdemar would cease to exist before its future iterations could become wealthy and complicated and noisy in Foresight.  You've already had a taste of that with the Karsite war, Vkandis moving against you."

"Yes, because your mages and even your Gifted get Chosen and then die before they have a replacement-number of children.  You'd think that would be easy to fix, with some sensible policy changes, and have a country with many Gifts and also highly reliable governance.  But then the other gods' pet countries would move against you, and Valdemar would cease to exist before its future iterations could become wealthy and complicated and noisy in Foresight.  You've already had a taste of that with the Karsite war, Vkandis moving against you."

"Yes, because your mages and even your Gifted get Chosen and then die before they have a replacement-number of children.  You'd think that would be easy to fix, with some sensible policy changes, and have a country with many Gifts and also highly reliable governance.  But then the other gods' pet countries would move against you, and Valdemar would cease to exist before its future iterations could become wealthy and complicated and noisy in Foresight.  You've already had a taste of that with the Karsite war, Vkandis shutting down your potential."