Time to address some issues:
Originally posted by Randy24242424
...Morbius mentioned the word Zeppelin in an earlier post when talking about Air Ships, and that got me to thinking, wouldn't Zeppelin be a better name for the Air Ship? Air Ship just sounds silly.
"An airship is an aircraft that consists of a cigar-shaped gas bag, or envelope, filled with a lighter-than-air gas to provide lift, a propulsion system, a steering mechanism, and a gondola accommodating passengers, crew, and cargo. All extensions, like the fins and the gondola/control car, are attached to the envelope; the propellers are attached to the gondola/control car.
There are three types of airships. In a nonrigid airship, also known as a blimp, the shape of the gas bag is maintained by the internal pressure of the enclosed gas. In a semirigid airship, also known as a keel-airship, internal gas pressure acts in conjunction with a longitudinal keel to maintain the form of the gas bag. In a rigid airship, the form of the gas bag is determined by a rigid framework, usually made of aluminum or a special aluminum alloy called Duraluminium; the framework is formed of longitudinal girders and cross-rings, also made of girders. The whole structure is covered with fabric for aerodynamic purposes. The rigid airship is often called a zeppelin in honor of its inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. It is also often referred to as a dirigible, a shortening of dirigible balloon, from the French ballon dirigeable, meaning steerable lighter-than-air craft.
In 1910 the rigid Deutschland became the world's first commercial airship. Between 1910 and the beginning of World War I in 1914, German zeppelins flew 107,208 miles and carried 34,028 passengers and crew entirely without injury. During World War I, the Germans used rigid airships on both the Eastern and Western Fronts as bombers although airships never became effective offensive weapons. Airships did excel as defensive weapons, and the British used nonrigid airships to patrol their coasts and rigid airships for convoy protection. The U.S. navy operated nonrigid aircraft during the war, as did the French and Italian armies and navies. The U.S. navy continued operating nonrigid airships during and after World War II, the only service in the world to do so. In addition to convoy protection, the airships conducted search-and-rescue, photographic, and mine-clearing missions."
--all information from infoplease.com
The Bomber line of airplanes have too much defense. I know the WW2 bombers could defend themselves against fighters to some degree, but people always knew that the bombers didn't have much of a chance of getting back to the airfield without air support from fighters (that is, if there will be enemy fighters/AA guns). Maybe lower the bomber's defense so that they can fight off very obsolete fighters, but also not stand much of a chance against more modern fighters? That would make things better, in my opinion.
My thinking was that the defensive value included a small fighter escort, the defensive value of the regular bomber is unchanged from the original whereas the fighter strength has been increased from 4 to 7 to actually give them a better chance of knocking down the bombers.
Lastly, I mentioned having obsolete units (especially naval units) upgrade into more modern units. I'll put down how I have them upgrading right now, just as a recommendation.
This has been already covered by RobO and Isak, but I thought I would add my two cents. We will be utilizing the empty upgrade trick to eliminate much of the wooden navies and also for the horse powered armies. The jetfighter will not upgrade to the advanced fighter, but the F-15 does. This is an advantage of the American's lame UU.
Also, I checked and saw that the Knight and Indian War Elephant got a HP bonus of 3, while the Chinese Rider only got a HP bonus of 2. They all can be built at the same time from the same technology, so I think that's a little unfair for the Chinese Rider.
This will be adjusted. both the Rider and the Samurai will have their HP increased to 3.
Atomic Theory gives you the ability to make High Schools, but I was thinking, wouldn't Public School be a better name for it? It's much more general, and I don't think there are any Preschools, Middle Schools, etc. in this mod...
Public Shools is a good name for the improvement.
Originally posted by Higher Game
It would be a good idea to have SOME dead ends on the unit tree! Having a horseman upgrade to a hum-vee (or whatever) is ridiculous.
We are working on this, though it is a low priority right now.
Gold is noticibly easier to get, with grassland having 1 natural gold and additional bank improvements. I mean, theres the toll house, bazaar, marketplace, bank, stock exchange, guild hall, skyscraper, you see a pattern here? Currency is easy to get here, just making the despotic government EVEN WEAKER.
I have some ideas on that. The first is to move the worker job of mining to engineering. what does that have to do with commerce? it would allow for a switch in grassland from 2/0/1 to 2/1/0 the same as plains. the difference between the two would come after you discover crop rotation and engineering when you can start to really exploit the naturally world around you. By removing the trade bonus from grassland that should reduce the surplus gold that you are seeing.
Pop rushing needs a boost, ... I seriously doubt if the editor would allow this. ...
I think I have a pretty good grasp of what the editor will and won't allow, and I am almost positive that we can change the effectiveness of the pop rush through the ages.
DyP is such an immense mod I doubt if we really will finish balancing it.
Maybe not, but with everybody's help we can sure give it a good try.
Originally posted by Pirateiam
Just a few quick thoughts. The Secret agent unit cannot be made. I had all requirements but it never showed in the build order.
Hmmmm
not sure why that would be.
Also what the heck does the radar unit do for you??? Only thing you could do with it is airdrop it in enemy territory and watch it be destroyed lol.
Fortunately the XP is going to have these as terrain improvements so we won't have to deal with these units anymore. They were supposed to act as an outpost so you could keep better tabs on you opponents.
Over all it was fun and this MOD has losts of potential but..... It needs major balancing. There are just too many positive (happiness and shield increase) buildings to build. I had cities with constant "King is great" celebrations and I mean 3.7 million pop with everyone happy (soemthing like 16 out of 20 of my cities where constantly celebrating.
We are working on this issue. The end result should bring it back closer to where things were in the original game, though it will still be possible to have very happy cities, they won't be as happy as they are now. Also FedRep and SocDem are having their war weariness increased to help offset the happiness issue.
Originally posted by Dark_Magician
There's a problem with AI (version 0.7.7). Clearly it doesn't know how to develop after middle age. It managed, due to a decent gold harvest get some good techs and buy units at good rate, but cities stayed at size 5, when mine were at reasonable 17. Difficulty was regent though.
This seems to be a common theme. Hopefully we can address this issue.
The idea of having land mines seems to be great idea. Even though a few mines I had were virtually avoided by the enemy, it is good that they spent time avoiding them. I decided not to place more, because was afraid mines are accountable in the army budget (?).
I believe they will count against your budget.
Air transportation (by airport) didn't work.
that is disconcerting. I will have to look into it.
Another good point was increased cost of units.
It is really boring to move some 40 atrillery pieces and 20 tanks at deity in regular civ 3, given absence of advanced interface support. Here some 5 panzers, given their ability to bombard (a controversial issue. It eliminates the need for artillery. Something should be done to make artillery more useful.
Artillary is capable of bombarding a target from further away than any of the other units.
Maybe making subtle distinction between firing at units and sieging cities. Also autodefending against attacks)...
There is no way to distinguish between targets in that manner.
Increased movement rate for air units is controvercial, since it decreases strategic moment, which means no planing of units in advance is necessary. It took a nerve sometimes in a normal situation to decide where to concentrate air units in situation of several fronts, because they could only be used after enemy makes a turn (same whith artillery, except they were changed to lesser degree). This needs to be thought of.
The way air units now work is that your bombers can move freely across the map but if they stop outside of the protection of a city they are extremely vulnerable to land units. Bombers can not board carriers. Fighters are treated in the same way as they were in the original game. This means that you can load up a carrier and stand off shore of an enemy and attack them with the lighter fighters but if you want to bring in the heavy guns of the bombers you need to establish an airbase (city) within stiking distance. Once you get your bombers within range you should use them as yoiu normally would using their operational range to strike your opponents. do not march your bombers right up to the gates of your enemy city. It is possible that the operational range of some of the air units may need to be adjusted.
Maybe changing it by allowing extra movement when moving between airports (or airbases?), which would then serve as infrastructure?
I don't think this is possible.
Originally posted by Higher Game
Ok, so the merchant should be available early in the game, but I don't want the AI making them when they only have 2 cities. Come on!
I wish I could control what the AI builds, really I do. Soren has indicated that he is going to get back to me on the AI governor issue, so maybe he can give me a better understanding of how the AI plans these things.
Thanks everybody for your comments. Keep em coming, its the fastest way to get this thing well balanced.