Nomad used to be my favourite map both for 1v1 and TG but ever since DE came out it has gone downhill. For the fist 8 months or so we had the civ picking problem, then in addition to that they removed the extra villagers from Chinese and Mayans and boosting the already best civ Persians with a 5% dark age bonus reducing the list of viable 1v1 civs to just Persians for about 4 months.
Ever since they removed the Persian bonus again the list has expended to Malians, Persians and maybe Lithuanians and Spanish (+Vikings for team games) all of them Cavalry civs and not a single archer civ in fact Persians and Malians play out almost identical so we are still stuck with what in the end feels like a Persians Mirror to this day because almost no one seams to use the "random" option for some reason...
They also changed the map generation to never be landlocked significantly changing the map for what? Reducing variance? It's not like people that dislike some amount of variance are ever going to play Nomad and the people that actually play nomad like it because it's chaotic and unpredictable!
And then Sicilians happened... Now there is one best civ again and it is way stronger then Chinese or Persians have ever been but only some people have it...
At this point I am forced to Alt F4 whenever Nomad comes up because my favourite map is gone.
So how can we fix this, well Sicilians have to change but what comes next?
I think there are 3 options:
#1 Return to the classic Nomad with Chinese and Mayans getting there extra villagers expanding the list of viable civilisations.
#2 Remove the Malians, Persian, Lithuanian and Spanish bonus at least until the first TC is up.
#3 Make more civs viable by introducing even more balance changes
Out of these options I like 1 and 3 and think 2 would work but I personally hate it.
Option 1 is very self explanatory so I am going to focus on option 3.
The single best solution I have come up with so far is to give every civ +50 wood on Nomad starts. This would give everyone the Persian start (other then Chinese and Huns) and still make Malians and Persians have there extra wood. I think this could be combined with giving Chinese and Mayans back there Villagers since Chinese still wont have the wood for dock + fish. I think this could be implemented on a map by map basis so only some Nomad start maps would get the extra wood.
Ever since they removed the Persian bonus again the list has expended to Malians, Persians and maybe Lithuanians and Spanish (+Vikings for team games) all of them Cavalry civs and not a single archer civ in fact Persians and Malians play out almost identical so we are still stuck with what in the end feels like a Persians Mirror to this day because almost no one seams to use the "random" option for some reason...
They also changed the map generation to never be landlocked significantly changing the map for what? Reducing variance? It's not like people that dislike some amount of variance are ever going to play Nomad and the people that actually play nomad like it because it's chaotic and unpredictable!
And then Sicilians happened... Now there is one best civ again and it is way stronger then Chinese or Persians have ever been but only some people have it...
At this point I am forced to Alt F4 whenever Nomad comes up because my favourite map is gone.
So how can we fix this, well Sicilians have to change but what comes next?
I think there are 3 options:
#1 Return to the classic Nomad with Chinese and Mayans getting there extra villagers expanding the list of viable civilisations.
#2 Remove the Malians, Persian, Lithuanian and Spanish bonus at least until the first TC is up.
#3 Make more civs viable by introducing even more balance changes
Out of these options I like 1 and 3 and think 2 would work but I personally hate it.
Option 1 is very self explanatory so I am going to focus on option 3.
The single best solution I have come up with so far is to give every civ +50 wood on Nomad starts. This would give everyone the Persian start (other then Chinese and Huns) and still make Malians and Persians have there extra wood. I think this could be combined with giving Chinese and Mayans back there Villagers since Chinese still wont have the wood for dock + fish. I think this could be implemented on a map by map basis so only some Nomad start maps would get the extra wood.