[DrPraetorious]

This is a lot of work, and also rather drastic.

Firstly, I don't think trying to reward underused units is wise. Some units are useful only under certain niche circumstances, and that's good and shouldn't be "messed with".

Now, the game does a remarkable job of balancing the different *nations*, which is what is actually important. However, it isn't perfect - especially under non-"standard" play conditions.

So, here's the deal -
First, everyone bids on each nation they want (gold or initial gems or whatever). Secret bidding. You bid on (number of players) + 1 nations.

Nations go to the high bidder one at a time until everyone has been assigned to a nation.

Then, everyone gets initial gold (or some other bonus) for each opponent that did not bid on the nation to which they ended up assigned (or if the total of all bids on that nation is low, or something like that.)

So you are encouraged to bid on weak nations, on the expectation that opponents will not do so, and you will get an intial bonus, also you can probably get them with a lower bid.

Thoughts?