Hello folks.
It's my first post here but I've been lurking around for a while.
I've been playing the mod a bit ... or rather trying to. With previous versions I was having flickering interface bug. With the latest version my game stops working after few hundred rounds after hitting the END TURN button. I'm here not for complaining about that however as I'm sure the mod will get more stable as it gets more polishing.
What I wanted is to drop you some constructive critic feedback about prehistoric era that I was able to play through before my games got unstable.
The first thing I've observed was that I couldn't turn off the goody islands short of deleting it from the mod folder (which I did as I never use goody huts as a house rule).
Another thing is the Hunter and Hawk units, that, if I'm not mistaken, were borrowed from Fall from Heaven mod. Hunter seems to be overpowered for it's era and Hawk honestly doesn't make much sense in your mod. Let me explain. While in fantasy mod having a hawk as a scout is an interesting concept it would never work like that in reality as hawks are just animals unable to communicate to their masters what they saw when flying over the terrain ... obviously
Now, hunters ... I like the unit in general but it should come into game much much later, perhaps as a counterpart for explorer unit (having ability to attack thus actively hunting for animals to populate carnival for example). As it is now, with str 3 and move 2, they make any military unit up to axeman and horseman a waste of hammers. If you don't want to kick the Hunter out of it's era then perhaps you might concider tweaking the unit to have severe penalty against all but animall units to reflect a skilled band of hunters being able to track and kill any game but not prepared for combat against trained warriors properly equipped for a battle.
Another unit I'd like to comment on is battering ram. I like having an unit able to batter fortifications but I don't see how could it be doing collateral damage at all. As it is the unit can even make a mess to enemy's stack on the open field ... or even forest. I would suggest drastically lowering it's strentght (or prevening it from direct attack whatsoever) so it would be only usable to bombard city's defence and not much more, as it was with real rams at their time.
Speaking of overpowered units ... barbarian penguins ... bloodthirsty penguins decimating warriors and workers alike? I do like easter eggs but come on
Now, I'd like to say few words about great generals. They're great when they're turned into field generals and I love the way they work ... however they do get overpowered A LOT when promoted properly. You see, they have them promotions that help other units withdraw from battle ( up to 70% chance ). That stacks with unit's own ability and your mod allows 100% withdraw chance, thus making them units unkillable when on attack ( and unkillable on defence as long as player enabled defenders withdraw and the unit have a plot to run to ). Also attacking with str 0.1 unit (that has 100% of withdrawal thus immortal) gives tons and tons of experience to the unit and is easy and strightforward to abuse. If I remember correctly Fall form Heaven 2 had 90% cap on withdraw chance. That might sort the issue out. You might also concider nerfind down the bonuses of general's promotions as well as make them activated after specific warfare tech is discovered.
As far as promotions go I'd like to share with my thoughts about woodsman and guerilla promotions. Woodsman III is very interesting promotion and I don't understand why Guerilla III doesn't have extra bonuses compared to Woodsman. Perhaps a withdrawal chance and heal while moving could be sneaked in to balance them two out. Also I don't understand why melee units can get III rank promotion and recon units are limited only to II rank. If anything it should be other way around to reflect recons indirect support for the main task force and main force's lack of subtelty of recon units.
I didn't get anywhere to have sniper (and alike) units but I've read civilopedia about them targeting recon units first. Perhaps it might be better to have them to target the weakest unit instead (something like Marksman promotion in Fall from Heaven 2) and have a promotion (like, say, spotter) allowing the unit to defend first agaist marksman attack to counter it. Again, like I said, I didn't get as far in the game so it's only theoretical.
Also, any chance to have an option in the BUG menu to activate and deactivate particular relligions? I don't see vodoo fitting the mod to be honest.
Well ... phew, that was a long one. hope I didnt bore you to death haha. And don't take it as a rant, I just want to give you some alternatives you might want to concider when updating your great mod. Keep up the good work
PS. Sorry for all them typos and spelling. I'm a terrible typer