A want to state opinion on balance between early mid and late game.
For me a nation should consist of three things, it should be really good at some point of the game, it should be weak at some point of a game and it should be middle of the road at the last point. Say have strong early game, crap middle game and decent late game. Or crap early game, decent middle game, and strong late game.
For me personally, if a nation has a really good early game (say Nifelheilm) and then has a decend middle game then heck it should be weak late game, because while you have been steamrolling some people(especially with the removal of gems) you gain a bit advantage, something oter nations(late game nations struggle to do on their own say bogarus although there have been found decent starts for them to try and defend themselves its still hard against stronger early games).
So what it means for a person to pick an early game nation. You get twice the expansion rate than weak early-game nations you get to steamroll someone so by the middle game. So say Ulm by middle game you get one of your more powerful weapons -Iron Angels. Add to that the fact that you should have twice the gem income of some nations with weak early game(just because you can afford and you have to take rainbow while others cannot do that). On top of the gem income you get national mages with forging bonus so you gem income is worth more.
By middle game, all those nations that were really weak early game can either shine or be decent to make up for the lack of early game. So at that point an early-game nations should start struggling to keep their provinces, but still be able to defend them against nations with strong late game and average middle game. The middle game nations (Like Machaka lets say) should shine now since its well "the middle game". So it should be relatively easy for them to try and get and accumulate advantages before the late game comes because they shouldnt be that strong late game, thus they need some advantage to compensate for that. (I sort of see those nations as good at everything and at nothing nations
) Lets say nations like machaka should be taking territories from weak middle game nations with ease, and be taking territories from middle of the road nations if they don't play scourched land taktic.(so it still should be easier for you to gain one or two territories off those nations so that you can get a better advantage) but I shouldnt be so easy to defeat them.
Now, at the late game, what the situation is, you should have
the strong early game nations (that have decend but not perfect middle game ) and the strong middle game nations (that have decend early game) relatively equal in terms of territories, wheres the weak at early or middle game nations lacking behind. So now its the time for those nations to try and leverge their national strengths. And those strengths shouldnt be balanced say/ If two nations have the same ammount of territories a late game nation can win, but at the cost of a lot of effort. Now the game is technically 2 v 1 for them. Because by then the early/mid game nations should have twice the size and gem income of a weak early/mid game nations, if you don't then you are doing something wrong and you dont play your nation to your strengths.
So if its late game now you should make tose late game powers be able to beat anyone less than twice their size(in terms of production/gem income etc) quite confortably. If they can't(if it isnt easy for them to do that than you dont have a balanced game). And for the strong early/mid game nations with twice the size of a late game nation it should be a fair fight between that late game nation and them(taking into account their advantage in territories and gem income).
So thats why when you try to make competitive for late game a nation like Ulm that has good early and decent mid game, you should be thinking more of the lines of: "by now they should be competitive only if they have twise the size of a late game nation" and not : "well given same size Ulm should be able to defend themselves against late game nations" I think that the definition of competitive should be based on the game situation(or what it should be) and not on " all things being equal " that is because the game progresses, and if you are for example Niefelheim and by the beginning of the late game you dont sit on top of twice as many territories as Bogarus or Pythium then heck you dont deserve to be competitive against them and you should loose badly if you didnt play to your strengths.
P.s. sorry for the long and confusing post.
(And a short way of saying the post beforehand : Early-game nations should only be competitive with late game nations if they have twice or more than twice the ammount of territories by late game) And even then late game nations should have the upper hand(so be on the attack)
Also for Ulm if you take rainbow(and there is no reason not to take one) with the EDM mod incorporated if you have twice the ammount of gem income of some late game nation, you shouldnt be able to be stronger than them. Things should be equal.
I made this post because it seem that the preception of some people about the game is different so I wanted to know if anyone thinks the way I do.
How people see things in dominions is: A nation is weak if it has a strong late game but no early game or late game. To get the game balanced, if that nation survives by the late game(even having a territories/gem disadvantage) they should be able to shine late game, and it should be easy for them to win now against anyone less then or equal to twice their size.
What happnes in practice: Early-mid game nations get a huge advantage early on, then by late game have twice the gem income of some late game nation(say Patala) and then because of the options that rainbow pretenders present then they beat the crap out of the poor Patalans unless the nagas somehow by a miracle manage to get equal in size at those early game nations.