This mod is excellent! You guys have done a great job. Some things I like best about your work:
--The specialized units make the game look much more realistic
--I like the new resources (cotton, salt, etc)
--The inclusion of spy-like units early on is awesome and makes the game a bit more intellectual
You guys said you were looking for suggestions on new stuff to add. Here are a few ideas I had:
-- Changes to Existing Mod --
Like others I had a lot of issues with the Slavery, Classic Democracy, and Serfdom. Some suggestions on some more realistic ways to handle these guys:
- The chances of a rebellion occuring should be very low when a large military presence exists in a city and sky high when no units are stationed there. As a rule of thumb, the nation should need about half as many units as exist population in a city to have a zero percent chance of a major rebellion, with chances going up with fewer units.
- Slaves, even huge numbers of them, are not a disciplined army trained for combat and organized by a military leader. A real rebellion would dissipate on its own after a short amount of time. I think slaves should vanish from the map after 5 turns, giving them time to perhaps destroy a few resources but not to overrun the entire nation.
- Slave units should always start out at 50% health.
The other major issue I had was with Barbarians. In reality Barbarian states do not represent a global faction but numerous individual groups with various opinions of each other. I thought they should be spending as much time fighting each other as they do raiding nations.
Since I don't think its possible to make the Barbarians fight their own troops, I think they should act less efficiently. They should waste turns wandering around aimlessly at times. They should not be creating large stacks of units (how are they feeding these huge armies without a leader to organize a supply line?) I also definitely feel they should not earn Warlords. Overall, there should be more to seperate Barbarians from nations.
Suggestions for New Stuff:
Here are some suggestions I have for new materials:
-- New Civics --
Agrarianism (Economic) -- Low upkeep. Each ag resource (corn, rice, etc) available to you generates +1 gold per turn, up to the number of cities you own that are currently growing. Stagnant cities have no effect on the cap, and starving cities reduce it by -1. Available with Agriculture.
Example: You have access to 7 ag resources. You own 6 cities: 4 growing, one stag, one starving. The max extra gold you can earn per turn is thus 4 - 1 = +3 gold. 7 > 3, so you currently earn +3 gold per turn.
Welfare State (Economic) -- High Upkeep. +1 Happiness +4 Hammers +2 Health in 4 cities with lowest commerce. By trading gold for production in more economically vulnerable areas, civs may be able to grow their weakest cities faster. (The concept originated in China, but is now popular in the Nethlands.) Available with Philosophy.
-- New Units --
Festival -- These traveling units can be activated to provide +1 happiness per luxury resource available to you for one turn and a direct boost of +3 culture in the target city, at the expense of 200 gold each time this ability is used. Festivals move slowly and cannot fight or defend. Only 1 Festival can be owned at a time per civ. Requires Currency and Music.
-- New Buildings--
Ghetto -- Building a ghetto provides -1 Health for a city but reduces the duration of ethnic rebellions to 1 turn and lowers the chance of culture flipping. Available with Code of Laws.
-- National Wonders --
Historic Society - Building a historic society in a city causes any buildings in that city that have become obselete to produce an additional +2 culture per turn. Requires Education tech.
-- World Wonders --
World Bank - Requires Economics. Each turn, the builder of this wonder receives +1 gold for every bank owned by a country with whom he or she shares open borders.
Thanks again guys for the great work.
-- Isau