*The freedom SP is a bit overpowered for your mod... Maybe change it to -25% or -30%
While I agree with the general sentiment, there are two big problems:
1> What happens before you get to those eras? -50% might be overpowered in those later eras, when specialists are great, but -25% would be incredibly weak in the Renaissance when the policy first unlocks.
And more importantly,
2> You can't change it. It's not in the files as a number, it's a hard-coded "<HalfSpecialistUnhappiness>" entry. If I could easily work around this and add happiness per specialist, then I'd have the Empath already functioning.
*Plant forest doesn't work? When my worker plants a forest, the improvement reads 'plant forest', it gets a bugged trade post texture and you can't put a trade post/lumbermill on top of it. (see images)
It's the Manufactory texture, actually. If you're seeing that, then the terraform.lua file isn't being loaded correctly; that improvement you're seeing is the temporary one. (Builder places improvement, OnImprovementCreated notes the new improvement, removes it immediately, and places a Forest in the hex.)
It's almost definitely one of the following two things:
1> Both mods adjust InGame.xml. Depending on which order the mods load, this is bad. If it's not loading my InGame.xml, then you won't get any of the new stuff: no new Wonder effects, no spaceship bonuses, and no terraforming.
I'm trying to move away from using this file, because obviously this is a major compatibility issue, but the game's been flaky when you load LUA files through the Properties tabs.
(In my game I can terraform just fine, but this makes me think that the Tech Diffusion isn't actually working for me. That means I'll probably have to integrate this into my mod after all.)
2> You could have a file version issue. The only change to that file in recent versions was the addition of the Deep Mine in 0.09, so it's possible that for whatever reason, you're mixing a pre-0.09 LUA file with a 0.09 XML file or vice versa. So go into the MODS directory, and open up three files: Lua/Terraform/Terraform.lua, XML/Terrain/CIV5Improvements.xml, and XML/Units/CIV5Builds.xml. Each of these should mention the Deep Mine. If one of them doesn't, then that's your problem.
But it's almost definitely the InGame.xml. Unfortunately, this means your savegame is basically ruined. Even if there was some way to fix the incompatibility without crashing the game, those tiles now have that Manufactory-looking improvement on them and won't trigger the event. You'd have to build a new forest on those hexes all over again.
*The AI sometimes doesn't luxuries and strategic resources, as you can see in one of my pics. Songhai built a city on an island next to oil, but never put an offshore platform on it :s
Unfortunately, the AI just doesn't seem to handle aquatic resources well at all. If I increase the naval_tile_improvement flavor to make them prioritize this more, then they'll end up building Work Boats that they don't need.
*The AI builds way too many anti-aircraft guns, it even uses it to attack cities. I only had 2 bomber at that time.
This is one of the reasons I added the Plasma Artillery. The AI can upgrade all of its mobile SAMs and artillery into something that's not quite so specialized. The problem is that the AI just doesn't comprehend "just enough", except for Workers. So if you make the AA gun less desirable, then it'll never make any in the first place, but making it desirable makes them do what you saw. You can turn off the ability of the unit to attack altogether, but that makes it an incredibly weak unit in general.
This is also why I added the Stealth Ship, Leviathan, and Needlejet. Each takes a very specialized unit (sub, carrier, fighter) and crosses it with a more straightforward unit (destroyer, battleship, bomber). That way, the AI can upgrade his specialized things into something more useful, and likewise can have more of those specialized abilities from upgrading the other half.
*The AI now makes a lot of money. ATM Japan is at >100gpt!
I've actually seen this happen both ways. In my latest game the Iroquois had 180 gpt in the Industrial, while the Russians only had ~50; the Russians were better off, because they'd built all of the major city buildings. (Russia was the only civ with Coal, so they got Factories up quickly.)
Frankly, I'm glad to see it; in the vanilla game it's too easy to get a massive gold advantage over the AIs and just buy everything you need (especially city-state relationships). The gold overhaul a couple versions ago was a big part of this, but the AI didn't handle it very well. That's why I adjusted all of the flavors in 0.10.
Also, they're probably in a Golden Age, which helps. But still, it's a big improvement IMO.
*The years don't match the tech tree. By 2055, I was still researching radar! I know this isn't a disaster but it isn't very aesthetically.
This is a consequence of the late-era start. The "get up to speed" boost just doesn't make up for the fact that you haven't had cities around. So the techs and growth that would normally take 20 turns in an Ancient start takes you 40+, at least until you get your empire in place.
It's the same in the core game. In vanilla, an Industrial start puts you in the year 1700 (turn 250). 150 turns later is 1980, and in an Ancient start those 150 turns would get you 30+ techs (putting you into the Future Era), but an Industrial start would get maybe half that. In my mod, the Industrial start puts you in the year 1670 (turn 340), but the effect is about the same.
And the time scaling is fine for a "normal" start; I started in the Ancient Era, on King, and I was using Tanks in 1776.
I can tweak this a bit, simply by changing the starting turn for the Industrial from 340 down to, say, 300, but that becomes unrealistic in the other direction; instead of starting in the year 1670-1700, you'd start in 1300 or something.
The main reason this effect isn't as noticeable in vanilla is that the era multipliers scale so strongly that your Industrial start will be getting new techs three or four times faster than normal, and growing/building faster by a huge amount as well. This was obviously untenable for the future eras, so I had to get rid of it.
One possibility is just to increase the temporary food and tech boosts even further, to make getting up to speed that much faster. But this will never go away entirely.
*The CS doesn't build any units except for one (1) worker. I've seen one CS with a jet fighter stationed though!
The problem is just that they can't afford to maintain too much; with no trade routes, their income will be pathetic, and most of it will be tied up in building maintenance. I'm tweaking the CS multipliers, and that should help with this. Adding a base gold boost to the Palace would help, too, which is something I've been thinking about for a while.
*Before China attacked me, we had an open borders agreement. When she declared war, it seems like the agreement is still in place,
I've heard about something like this in vanilla games for the past few months, a bugged Open Borders that never goes away. I don't know what triggers it, but it's not my mod that causes it. (Especially bad once you have railroads.)