I've been reading about how broken is this nice little game from the day it was released. Of course I will agree there are a variety of concerns on balance and bonuses that will make the game more appealing and right if tweaked (remember how many years of development, releases and patches it took Civilization to get to nowadays depth and balance, just like Kung Fu ancient martial arts).
Nevertheless, I find one and one alone issue/mechanic which makes the game not right, sort of speak...
The problem with independence relies not that much on REF size or artillery disproportionate bonuses (which makes city defence an absurd strategy, hence limiting the WoI to counter attacks
), but rather on the fact that when you choose to disband population your overall rebel sentiment increases. This means that your total liberty bells must be divided between your populace.
I believe this mechanic is very reasonable in many situations; the amount of LB you generate will result in more rebel fervor among a few than the many, or, while in the WoI your population is being decimated by the king's forces the worried few who are surviving should grab any piece of metal around them and go fight the tyrant with high rebel fervor.
The fact is that this mechanic as it is allows for the exploit of just disbanding population and having the desired rebel sentiment/percentage, exploit mentioned so many times in the forum, to both declare independence or, later on, increase rebel fighting bonus.
Any fix to the game should be primarily focused over this specific issue I believe. One possible solution might be to sum up rebel sentiment each turn within each unit (population unit, don't know which units count in the divisions and which don't); this system needs to be refined though!!
Ah, as a matter of fact, the game is still very nice. It has many thing to be added (random events for a start). And possible to win without the exploit. Here I uploaded a revolutionary save were I managed to score 9000 normalized points, playing with Adams and without developing any industry, just mining silver and making some guns with an armory!!! Luck??
Nevertheless, I find one and one alone issue/mechanic which makes the game not right, sort of speak...
The problem with independence relies not that much on REF size or artillery disproportionate bonuses (which makes city defence an absurd strategy, hence limiting the WoI to counter attacks
), but rather on the fact that when you choose to disband population your overall rebel sentiment increases. This means that your total liberty bells must be divided between your populace. I believe this mechanic is very reasonable in many situations; the amount of LB you generate will result in more rebel fervor among a few than the many, or, while in the WoI your population is being decimated by the king's forces the worried few who are surviving should grab any piece of metal around them and go fight the tyrant with high rebel fervor.
The fact is that this mechanic as it is allows for the exploit of just disbanding population and having the desired rebel sentiment/percentage, exploit mentioned so many times in the forum, to both declare independence or, later on, increase rebel fighting bonus.
Any fix to the game should be primarily focused over this specific issue I believe. One possible solution might be to sum up rebel sentiment each turn within each unit (population unit, don't know which units count in the divisions and which don't); this system needs to be refined though!!
Ah, as a matter of fact, the game is still very nice. It has many thing to be added (random events for a start). And possible to win without the exploit. Here I uploaded a revolutionary save were I managed to score 9000 normalized points, playing with Adams and without developing any industry, just mining silver and making some guns with an armory!!! Luck??
