Nomad map set up
Nomad is a Random Map featured in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors and Age of Mythology. "Nomad" denotes the period before the Dark Age and Archaic Age respectively. In both games, players do not begin with any buildings and need to build a Town Center in a location of their choosing before they can advance technologically.
In Age of Empires and Age of Empires III, Nomad is not a particular map but is instead a setting that can be enabled for any map. If enabled, players will begin without any buildings and with just enough units to establish a settlement.
Age of Empires
In Age of Empires, Nomad is a game mode that is enabled in the settings for Random Map and Deathmatch. In this mode, all players spawn with only one Villager. The placement of the villager is still affected by Fixed Positions.
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
In The Conquerors, players begin with three Villagers scattered about the map, which consists of a large landmass surrounded by ocean on three sides. Occasionally lakes and rivers may be present in the middle of the map. The land may feature temperate terrain with pine trees and grass, or desert terrain with palm trees and sand.
Tactics
Ideally, when picking where to build their Town Center, players should vie for a settlement that includes an abundance of every resource, but Food and Wood are top priorities since without them the player cannot build houses or train villagers. The player should try to explore as much of the map as possible with the other villagers and do not wait a long time to build a town center because the enemy might have already built their own.
In multiplayer, teams can try to unite their villagers early in the game in an attempt to quickly destroy their opposing player's forces. However, such a tactic is risky at best as failure could lead to a severe economic disadvantage. Teams may also build their bases very close to each other (or even together), trading availability of resources for safety.
Age of Mythology
Nomad map in Age of Mythology.
Your Villagers start scattered with no Town Center. You'll need to find a Settlement to occupy during the time that combat is prevented.- Map description.
Nomad in Age of Mythology is very similar to its Age of Empires II counterpart, however it is instead depicted only as a desert land with no rivers or lakes, and ocean on three sides of the map.
Once again, each player begins with three Villagers (two for the Atlanteans) randomly scattered around the map, the game starting at nightfall. Norse players however start with three Ulfsarks instead, as Gatherers cannot build.
By the time the game begins, a special Ceasefire is casted, and as it draws to its conclusion, the sun rises. Huntables in this region are typically African, including Baboons, Elephants and Giraffes, and there are also plenty of stray Goats, and some Berry Bushes.
As Town Centers can only be constructed on top of abandoned Settlements, players are more limited as to where they can construct their own settlements compared to Age of Empires II. Atlanteans have a huge advantage in this map as their villagers can start to collect resources since the beginning of the game, Oranos have the most advantage in the map as this major god can see the location of all abandoned settlements.
Trivia
- This map is the only one in the vanilla game to alternate between unique lighning modes; the starting lighning is "Night", and as Mother Nature's Ceasefire goes on, the lightning alternates to "Dawn".
- Nomad is one of the two maps where Mother Nature casts a God Power, the other being Open Fields.
Age of Empires III
In Age of Empires III, Nomad is a game mode that can be enabled for any map in the game. In Nomad games, European civilizations begin with an Explorer and a Covered Wagon. Native Americans begin with a War Chief and a Town Travois and Asian civilizations begin with a Monk and a Town Rickshaw and a free resource building rickshaw (e.g. Cherry Orchard) . The wagons allow players to build a Town Center for free in a location of their choosing. Once the Town Center has been constructed, several free villagers and resource crates will spawn around it.
