Simple guide for the first two ages in Nomad

In nomad, each player starts with 3 citizens. Most likely one of those citizens will be standing near a decent starting spot - e.g. a forest with >5 slots and a mountain, close to each other. Ideally you want your city limit to encapsulate both so that you could build granaries and lumber mills to boost your resource output later in the game.

Once you find a good spot for your initial city, send all three citizens to build the city - you want to finish the city as soon as possible so you can get your nation powers and start building an economy.

If there are ruins near your city, ignore them for now. You want to capture those ruins only after you build your first farms and wood. The ruins always produce the resource you currently have the least of, and food/timber are much more valuable in the earliest part of the game because you need them to build your economy.

So you have a city, +10 income in food and timber, and 90 food, 90 wood, 50 wealth. It's not a ton of resources but using them well is the key.

1. Select your city. Produce a citizen.
2. Select one of your citizens. Have it build a lumber camp at the nearest decent (>5 slots) forest. Ideally the forest should be close to the city.
3. Select the other two citizens. Have them build two farms (ctrl+f is the hotkey)
4. Send your new citizen to either help build the farms or to the lumber camp. I prefer farms as it means you get their food bonus quicker, which in turn means you can make new citizens faster
5. After you have three farms and three lumberjacks, build two more citizens and have them go scout.
- scouting is key in nomad. As you have no scout, you need citizens to find enemies, rare resources and ruins. Your exploring citizens pay themselves back with a single ruin; the more ruins you find, the more cost effective those citizens are.
6. Build another citizen and use it to build farm #4
7. Build another citizen and send him to the wood camp
8. Build another citizen; use it to build farm no. 5
9. Fill your lumber camp to commerce limit (+70 at most).
10. Build another citizen, use it to build a library. When the library is finished, send it to scout for a good location for your second city.

What to research at the library?

Generally saving food until you have enough for civ 1 is the best choice. Most of the time, the extra commerce cap gained from going com1 can't be filled without a second city first, and while a market by itself is nice, wealth isn't useful in ancient age. The exception to this rule should be when you are on a water map (so you could fish) or there are food rare resources close to your city (bison, sugar, spices, etc) - only food rares should be considered because it is the most important ancient age resource and directly affects how fast you can reach classical age. Besides, you usually save enough resources to be able to research com1 as your second city is being built.

Once civ1 is done, go build your second city. Location of the city is important. On one hand you want to find a good resource patch - a forest or a mountain - close to the city, but on the other hand the second city should also be able to shield your capital. Nothing is worse than your capital getting sacked by a few cheeky phalanxes in the classical age that sneaked past the defense your second city could have provided.

As you're building your second city, you should have saved enough resources for com1. Research it, then immediately build a market once the research is finished. Then build a cavaran with your new market - unless you're Inca, caravans will be your most important wealth-generating machines.

Meanwhile, at your second city, build more farms and, if need be, more lumber camps. Your goal is to hit +100 food and +100 lumber income. This usually means 3 farms at your second city.

If you have a ton of lumber to spare at this point, research sci1. Sci is important because each level reduces all of your research costs by 10% - so you could go to classical age for 450 food rather than 500 food, for example. If not, and you're close to your enemy (i.e. your second city is facing your enemy's second city), then research mil 1. Go barracks after mil1 is done.

As your barracks are finishing, if you are getting raided by your enemy, then build a slinger and an archer to stop your enemy's raids. If you are not getting raided, build a hoplite and send it against valuable rare resources on the enemies' side of the map. Some of the most valuable rares (and therefore priority targets) are: diamonds, bison, papyrus, silver, peac-ocks, relics,silk, fur, dye, spices, horses, salt. Remember that merchants are expensive, especially on big maps with many valuable rares, so trading a hoplite with a merchant is usually a good deal, and since merchants clump together you rarely will only kill one merchant!

By the time you finish all four tier 1 research at the library, then it's time to save up for classical age. Once you reach 450 food (or 404 food if one of your opponents aged first), hit that classical age button.

So you've hit classical age, congrats. You get access to two new resources: metal and knowledge, both of which are extremely important. Your goal is to either manage those two resources well, or make sure your opponents fail to do so.

This means you have two paths before you. You can either build a strong economy while fending off your opponents' attacks in order to reach medieval age faster. Or you can build an army and go after your opponent, either to destroy his economy or to kill him outright. I'm only going to talk about the economic path here because the aggressive path (often requiring you to go despot) is too situational to explain concisely.

Economy path:
1. as soon as aging finishes, build a university in each of your cities and build a mine. Make extra citizens so that you can do all of this as soon as possible.

2. After that's done, build your senate. Once all the buildings are complete, send your idle citizens to mine.

3. Once the senate is complete, research the Senator (115 food, 115 metal). If you have wood and wealth to spare, pour them into archers. 3-4 archers means you're not vulnerable to hoplite rushes.

4. When you have at least 3 archers, build a stables. Train 2-3 light horses after you finish the stables.

5. While you're building your defensive army, don't forget to expand your economy! Your senator raises your commerce cap by +50. So build farms in your second city until you hit the farm cap, and fill up your mines and lumber camps with citizens. If you have spare food, go civ2. Build your third city using the same criterion as the second city: push ahead if your capital is secure, otherwise protect your flanks. Though your 3rd city should ideally address a resource that you lack, whether it be timber or metal. Build a university in your third city immediately. Build another caravan.

6. Once the archers are done, depending on how heavily your opponent is pressuring you/how many units he has: build 2-4 hoplites. If you see your opponent with caraphracts or siege engines, research mil2 immediately and build cataphracts for yourself.

7. Whenever you have spare wealth, invest them into scholars. Knowledge is THE most important resource in the game, and especially so during the first five ages. Falling behind in knowledge usually means you lose.

8. Once you have approximately 8-10 scholars, you can research sci2. After that, it's a matter of saving up your knowledge and food until you can reach medieval age. Keep investing your spare resources into scholars, cataphracts, or barracks units (focusing on hoplites/phalanxes)

Should you upgrade your barracks units in classical age?

Many people do, but personally I prefer to use ancient age barracks units. The differences between them are not huge and given how few units players generally have in the classical age, it is often better to have more inferior units rather than fewer better units. Additionally, slingers are useful for absorbing damage, but not for much else. It is better to use food for hoplites and wood for archers.

Once you reach medieval age, there are once more many diverging strategies you could take: with the addition of supply wagons to your army, you can attack much deeper into your opponent's territory. You can build a strong army to attempt to overwhelm your enemy, or you can consider building more cities and boom your economy even more. Remember to always keep making scholars so you won't fall behind your opponents!

[To be updated]