[rdonj]

Personally I would just use the same settings as the last game except without the NAP, and changing the vets get to pick all their nations first rule. I guess some of the vets later decided the NAP did help the noobs out, but I'm not completely sure about that.

I think the noobs did do pretty well in the last game. I don't think they need as big a boost as 50,000 population in the capitol to be competetive, definitely. If you want to give a small boost to expansion ability, maybe set indies one lower than normal. Much more than that is probably not necessary, and would most certainly taint any noob victory that came from it. If you really want the theme of large armies you can still go with 125-150% gold and resources, but you should probably stay awsay from team-specific advantages to prevent it from looking biased.