nobel is pretty good, but rowland can save you even if you're up shit creek in symbols. I mean nobel is basically icing on the cake for your industrialized / reformed board.
In cities, it's easy enough to claim one of those flags or splay in some direction achievements, without cities maybe not so much.
If there is one card I wish were nerfed though if there could be only 1, it would be almanac. I mean losing in age 3 is pretty demoralizing, and without many options to get rid of it. Compass / horseshoes, perfume? The point is there shouldn't be a card in age 3 that can end the game immediately, it's just silly. Age 5 is even pushing it. That's why when I made my list of 3 OP cards I said Measurement, Industrialization, and Almanac. At least those OP heroes are in age 7, which is not particularly easy to get to. Sure a lucky math maybe, but I found if the other player stays in 1 for awhile, there are enough weapons (archery and construction with the famous achieve / steal trick, perfume, horseshoes) that you can catch up fairly easily. Almanac is fairly immune, kind of like fermenting. Fermenting is definitely way OP in the cities version; however, before those 4 leaf cities and endorsements I'd say it's fine as is.