This was an attempt to make explorers and scouts actually useful. It's probably only considered an exploit because it is strong relative to using GG super healers. IMO using GGs as medics is the weirder thing. A couple of options here:
1) Reduce the healing power of W3.
2) Remove W1 from explorer.
3) Disallow W3 again.
GGs as medics does not strike me as too strange, because "healing" is not only "recovering from injury". It's making sure the logistic can heal the injured and add new equipment, avoiding desertion, remotivating troop, etc. I don't think it's just a medic thingie to recover from an hard battle. Just think about one thing : a general that can make sure his troop have the supplies they need (arrow, spare sword, armor), that is charismatic enough to avoid too much desertion does in civ4 term heal his troop, and qualifie as great general, because logistic is just that important.
The main grip against recon unit with WIII is that they are *recon* unit. I should use them to spot ennemy stacks, not to recover from battle. Being able to get Sentry and mobility would please me a lot more than woodsman III, because the latter seem very unnatural.
I assume this is because you won't be able to use it to build 10xp cannons anymore? It is a side effect of the change but does it not allow the Spanish UB to be used for longer in other games? Can you suggest an alternative tech where castles should obsolete? Many complain that it obsoletes too fast with Economics.
Yes, but avoiding economy for some time is not a big problem. You can grab steel, rifling, them go economy, you will have stock up enough cannon (usually). Avoiding steel mean you must make a lot of money to upgrade trebuchet.
Castle are obsolete at economics because it obsolete mainly the +1 trade route and other goodies like that. I would make them obsolete at corporation, or maybe a little later but I have no idea.
Praetorian will be weaker against things other than axemen though. In particular, it'll be slightly weaker against archers which is the main unit it tends to dominate.
The way I see it, most FIN leaders are going to want to Cottage that riverside tile anyway in order to make their incoming bling-bling absolutely as high as possible as soon as possible. A notable exception would be cases in which the tile or city in question is sub-optimal (e.g. a plains river tile early in the game with little or no food in the BFC), in which case using Serfdom farms allows for an opportunity cost (no Slavery and reduced GPP, but early-founded river cities with no resources in the BFC are even more viable than usual and thus more immediately lucrative to snatch up).
For me, the change is very, very good, because it make worthwile to go to serfdom from slavery. Financial make mini-cottage, but they still don't compete with real cottage, especially later in the game. And it help a lot more the full farm strategy than financial who do some farm. It's one of the change that made me try this mod out.
Post-biology Serf'd farms could be interesting, too. But not sure how they are in terms of power ratio. Will have to see.
And by that time, emancipation concern may kick in.
Like you, I'm kind of indifferent about the granary change. It just seems like it maybe hurts non-EXP leaders more than it accomplishes anything else, off-hand, though I'd have to play it some more to get a fuller feel for it.
If you think granary too powerful, I suggest putting them to 25% (or 20%, or 30%) and not 50%. This way, granary would be less powerful and still easy to do. Whatever price they come, they are mandoatory, so if you don't push the price to 120 hammer I will still do one in every city.
I adore the changes to the Liberalism race. It slows the pace of the early-middle game down (in a way that actually makes the game more fun to play, imo) and gives everyone a little more time to strategize and specialize cities a bit more before running toward Lib becomes critically important. It also makes a Nationalism --> Constitution semi-beeline through Philosophy more attractive, because you don't have to worry quite as much about some clever AI snatching Lib right away, and can play the trading game a bit longer. Good news for SE players who nevertheless don't like to bulb everything.
I would say to remove free tech from liberalism and give it to scientific method. It kill two bird with one stone, and would make appear at least one more bird to kill : the slingshot sciMeth->Physics would be mighty good, because Physics boost your military AND give a free scientist.
TheLazyHase--are you referring to the fact that obsoleting the Citadel with Steel will make it useless for training up new Cannon units? That is a bit of a conundrum, I must admit.... Though, on the other hand, they already make for kick-butt Trebuchets before Gunpowder is even a factor. But I see what you're saying--obsoleting it at Steel functions similarly to a stealth-nerf on Spanish players, because they can no longer forego Economics in order to make their cannons stronger for an early Gunpowder war.
Yes. And I believe the spanish UB was designed for cannon, not just trebuchet. I can't recall spanish for trebuchet, but I do remember spanish cannon - for naval battle against piracy or to conquer the america.
You certainly seem to take criticism well PieceOfMind, an excellent quality in a modsman I must say!
My knee jerk reaction would probably be to sock TheLazyHase in his jaw lol
Really the bottom line is that it is your mod and you can do anything you want!
Sorry Hase, just had to get that off my chest.
It's my computer, so I can do the change I want
The main point was it's idiot to change the mod because I have some reasons to think it's wrong and not say anything to the author. Feedback ^^
In reaction to his criticisms to the Praetorian and explorer changes, I do not find them unbalanced at this time. I think your change to the Praet is rather elegant actually, reducing it from the jaw dropping strength of 8, yet lowering its hammer cost at the same time. Coupled with the slight axe nerf I think it has great potential. And let's face it, scouts/explorers suck! Giving them woodsman3 is an interesting change imo.
Note, I have not said that the Praetorian change is unbalanced. I just don't really understand what it make. Regular str 8 praetorian seem far from being overpowered - in any case, not really more than HA rushs.
Wouldn't a stealth benefit then be that they can tech Economics sooner?
But economics is not so important military speaking. Obsoleting on a key military tech a military UB is really bad news.