It looks like in all later melee vs range comparisons throughout all eras including info (mechanized vs bazooka) the difference between their combat strengths is about 2x, while sword vs composites is almost 3x. I think melee combat advantages get increasing returns so this is huge. Melee vs ranged strengths seem to differ a little but the sword vs composite's almost the highest at 1.6x, the rest are 1.25-1.45x. It looks like the composite could actually use a buff to 8/11, and the regular archer might be better at 6 ranged strength. I know they don't have to be the same but with what I saw him do with the other units it looks like that's the plan.
Keeping the relation roughly the same seems like the good target.
The real difference is that before the AI used to not care at all about its relation with the asking player. So if an AI planed to kill you, it would not matter for the bribe and it was easy to send it away.
Now it adds additional modifiers for its relations with you and if it wants to kill you the cost is doubled (but this can also be reduced if it also hates the other guy).
That seems reasonable & likely. So far the successful bribes have so few anyway that it's probably too early to make much if any conclusions.
I've currently made modifiers multiplicative rather than additive so that additional modifiers that goes in the same direction have diminishing returns.
That seems like a good change - I have a long standing hate towards buffed units which act like they were from few eras in the future.
I continued my Harun adventure to ~T140 whithout anything drastic but few observations:
- somehow Suleiman & Attila are more keen on archer line units than I'm used to and vice versa the lack of HAs & Janissaries is noticeable which is rather odd
- AI isn't shy on declaring & taking CSs
- either I'm still disliked for totally irrational reasons or, quite possibly, I haven't properly adjusted myself to the changes. AIs are quite willing to change their mind over night without any apparent reason but they rarely pay full price for anything so they probably are overall not so friendly
- taking two capitals after liberating two CSs didn't trigger a single denouncement though I started both wars and took few other cities - I think this actually is fine
- I'm teching extremely slowly due to taking pretty much everything with defensive value as soon as possible which I like - beelining seems more risky now
- early build orders included much more units than usually - vulnerable frontline cities are scary places
- AI units are much harder to kill which is fine but I still feel that their cities are too weak against archer line units including CAs which are still excellent but nowhere near as good as they were so Harun is rightfully so slightly nerfed
- Liberty seems viable though slow again without the need of stealing workers
- Honor can be filled in a reasonable time frame which is very welcomed
If/when I get to Industrial and so on I hopefully have something to say about beaker production as the changes seem big ones. The AI doesn't seem to be that fast either but almost all of their cities, especially capitals are small(ish). Monte's cap is 10 pop @135 and he is the tech lead and hardly a pushover in any other category.