You can also add starting sites to the capitol that would give bonii. You can have them give extra gold, gems, or resources to the cap province. For the record I don't think a boost is necessary either, I am just offering ideas as to how it could be done
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I don't think it really matters if the noob team is as good at fashioning a list as the vets. Chances are trying to go for a perfect team setup to play against the vet team just would not work for a noob team. They would do better and have more fun playing nations that they know/want to play. Of course they would also do better if the vets didn't have all the high-powered nations for the era, which I think is probably the best way to nerf the vets in this game.