[Alpine Joe]

Qm has done a great job in this mod of making some nations stronger, but there is a lot of work yet to be done on nation balance. I would like to see a balance mod where no nations are clearly much more powerful than others. Ideally, nations like niefelheim, hinnom, mictlan, etc would actually be on par with other nations in terms of strength, rather than clearly ahead. Thus, I'd like to jumpstart a discussion of nation balance by proposing my own list of changes that I feel would do more than provide small power buffs to weak nations, but rather give them a substantial boost putting them on par with the powerhouse nations.
thus here is my list. i welcome disagreement/discussion, and i acknowledge i am not the most experienced of players. Nevertheless, I think some discussion of nation balance is warranted, especially with the removal of gem gens.

EA arcoscephale:
1. Mage engineers recruitable everywhere
2. Oreiads get A3E1N2 default with the extra 110 percent random
3. lower encumbrance on icarids

EA ermor:
1. Augurs get a point in D magic
2. Augur elders get an extra 100 percent F/D/A/S random

EA Ulm:
1. 50 percent random on smiths increased to 100 percent
2. Archers restored to vanilla stats
3. Antlered shamans increased to N3

Marverni:
1. Druids reduced to 300, W random option removed, leaving randoms only S/E/N
2. Axe wielding infantry +1 strength

Sauromatia:
As is

Tien'chi:
1. Master of elements recruitable everywhere
2. Reduce resource cost on archers

Mictlan:
As is

EA Abysia:
1. Warlock and Warlock apprentice recruitable outside of capital
2. Extra point of earth on Annointed of Rhuax
3. Demonbred given leadership 40/Undead leadership 40

EA Caelum:
As is

EA C'tis:
1. extra point of N on Sauromancers, research malus 1 to compensate
2. Serpent dancer cost reduced by 5

EA Pangaea
1. Centaur warrior price reduced by 5
2. Pan reduced to 300
3. Maenad generation rate reduced

EA Agartha
1. Extra E/Element random on Oracles
2. Earth readers 10 Percent chance of extra E random
3. heat 2 preference

EA tir'na'nog
1. Extra point of E on Tuatha sorc and Ri
2. Sidhe warrior price reduced by 3

Fomoria
As is

EA vanheim
1. Dwarven smiths recruitable everywhere
2. Sacred boar cost reduced by 10

EA Hellheim
1. Svartalfs restored to recruit anywhere

Niefelheim
As is

Kailasa
1. Yaksha recruitable everywhere
2. Bandar longbows reduced to 18 gold

Yomi
1. MR on demon troops increased by 2
2. Reduce encumbrance on Dai oni armor by 2
3. Old age removed from sorcerer

Hinnom
As is

Atlantis
1. MR on all "Deep" troops increased to 10

R'lyeh
As is

EA Oceania
I have no idea where to go with this one.....

Lanka:
As is

Feedback on this list? Unless people really hate talking about this, I'll post some suggestions for other ages later. Once again, i only intent this as a starting point for a discussion of nation balance, not as some kind of definitive list.