A dozen balance issues

[Higher Game]

First of all, I love the restraint and focus that this mod has, like a proper expansion, and it definitely makes naval warfare more balanced and espionage more interesting. I also like seafaring, for making the great lighthouse and coastal trade a bit harder to get. The new graphics are good, too. A handful of things are funny, though.

#1. Why a muskets technology after gunpowder? I think a primitive cannon at gunpowder, in between trebs and proper cannon is great. However, muskets are now ridiculously far into the game, when they were already arguably too far after knights and macemen and not much better.

#2. It's confusing to have two unique units/buildings for some civilizations. Some are entirely unnecessary, like Russian infantry.

#3. The free engineer from Leonardo's Workshop is too much. Engineering points are valuable enough that they come on wonders that are otherwise mediocre (Hagia Sophia) or very expensive (Pyramids). -50% upgrade cost is very powerful by itself. I would take away the engineer and just give +1 engineering GPPs.

#4. Grenadiers are virtually pointless now, and they weren't so great before. City smashing cannon of equal strength are only a single tech away, and cuirassiers are better for attacking siege stacks. I suppose they're decent defenders in the short period before riflemen, but are otherwise forgettable. I do, of course, assume that I started with iron and horses or have "acquired" them by this point.

#5. 3 helicopter units is too much. I think paratroopers represent air assaults just fine, actually, so just the normal vanilla helicopter works just fine.

#6. The early game is far too defensive now, due to weaker melee units. Horsemen feel too good now.

#7. Why uber pikemen? They shouldn't be on even grounds with macemen.

#8. The battering rams and assault mech are hilarious, but pointless.

#9. Subs should be toned down. I actually think they were fine before, as they are obviously made with flanking in mind. Now, and especially with the sea planes, they're too good.

#10. Why airships at combustion and oil? They made sense at physics, because they helped cannon and artillery take on stronger riflemen and infantry. I always interpreted them as advanced scouting and logistics, not literal bombers.

#11. The free technology at AI is a bit much. It's a good tech anyway.

#12. Machine guns aren't good at all against armored units. They're too good against everything else, even the artillery that used to counter them when they were siege units instead of "trench units". I know this might be realistic, but along with the new airships it makes oil far too important because tanks and planes are vastly important now.

 

[Ambassador]

#1 are fine for me, I actually like this postponement very much. Also, musketmen and bombards not starting the same time.

#2 is just for flavour, I guess. I agree with the Russian infantry.

#3 represents a kind of tech lead in renaissance time and is fine for me. Maybe let it become obselete earlier.

#7 Actually the Swiss landsknechts and Gewalthaufen meant the end to classic medieval warfare. They WERE quite powerful. Their countering units are now cannons/bombards and musketmen which is historical and works well in gameplay for me and AI.

#10 Airships flying over grenadiers, cannons and maybe older medieval units looks and feels just odd. Advanced aerial reconnaissance weren't available until proper plane's and zeppelins came into use. Anyway you have scouts etc.

#12 Here again I like the way phungus implemented it very much. Historically the machine guns very a military revolutions. They were only overcome by tank deployment. If you don't have oil you have to wait for marines.

The remaining points don't bother me much.

 

[phungus420]

Try the 0.9.9 SVN. I agree with a lot of what you say, they are minor issues though, old issues still haunting the mod from Wolfshanze. The last vestiges of which have been shed in the 0.9.9 SVN. You're dead wrong about the gulf between muskets and bombards though; you're just wrong, that's how it was historically, and it works fine in game; though I do have a plan to smooth it a little: 0.9.9 has a couple major changes left to go. Same can be said for a couple of your other complaints; air assault is meant to be the way it is, so are machine guns, these are huge changes to the aspect of warfare, and they are reflected in the mod in a way that works for gameplay. Again, try the 0.9.9 SVN and see what you think there; especially try it immediadly after the release of 0.9.8e, I should have a couple of other changes in the industrial period nailed down. The late game and early game are playing pretty much exactly as designed, and I only have a couple of minor issues with the late renaissance and industrial period to nail down.

Edit: I'd also be much farther along, but it's just me working on this now. LoR no longer has a graphics artist, just me, there is a limit to how much I can do in a set period of time. Especially since I cannot add new unit classes, or smooth out certain bumps without any new art to implement. Most mods here don't give a fck about performance, but this mod does, this mod is built for performance and playing in a bug free enviroment. I am very much constrained though given the current state of the mod team; ie it being just me

You may have a point though, it may be best to simply remove the mod for a couple of months and bring it back once I have the kinks worked out. SVN is of course needed, this will be maintained, but it may be best to eliminate the main download. I also hate the 2 UUs for some civs, and get irked by a couple of issues, but without a graphics artist it's hard to deal with, and maintaining save game compatiblity is another issue, plus some other problems; in many ways this project is just too unwieldy as it's set up and maybe should go into pure dev mode. I will think about this for a bit.

 

[Higher Game]

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Lighter_than_air/Civil_War_balloons/LTA5.htm

Balloons were used in war in the same era as cannon and riflemen (in fact, rifled muskets!). They were for recon, which abstractly weakened enemy units by forcing them to set up decoys and properly conceal themselves. Firaxis put them in the right place at physics. Without airships, cavalry is a much weaker unit; airships, cavalry, and spy riots were a great way to blitz a city while a cannon/rifle stack hit elsewhere.

Where muskets are in the tech tree now, they should probably have 10 strength. Rifles and grenadiers aren't much ahead of them.

Pikemen make longbowmen and especially crossbowmen (which also require iron!) far too weak. It's currently by far the best city defender until muskets, and it continues to be relevant against mounted units until riflemen; they even fight well against cavalry in the right situations. Pikemen were fine before, with no melee help.

Machine guns are realistic now, and it was funny before using cavalry against them instead of infantry, but that was a game balance element, not realism. The new cavalry replacement, the armored scout, makes the balance fair if you have oil. If you don't, even marines (which are actually quite a distance away, due to needing medicine) aren't that great against machine guns, because they're the gunpowder type and not trench. The armored scout should be like a cheaper, weaker, oilless tank, that perhaps builds faster if you have oil.

I suppose a good twist on Leonardo's workshop would be to make upgrades 33% cheaper, but allow 2 citizens to become engineers. I'd still pay 800 hammers for that, or use up an earlier engineer to rush it.

I don't know about SVN stuff, I just go by what the released version has. The mod is still fundamentally sound, apart from some quirks.