Alright so after a long hiatus I did several rounds of games. Here is my feedback:
Germany
I tried out the new Germany several times.
UA: It creates a unique playstyle with the notion of pounding out units instead of rushing to emissaries to snag a few CS allies. Its also a nice synergy with the new "gift a unit" type CS quests. Ultimately, I didn't find it terribly powerful, but it helps a bit. My biggest issue with it is the "UI" of it, I had situations where I gifted a unit and got no benefit because the CS instantly upgraded them, and the amount of benefit you get is highly variable because of that. Contrasted with Siam that gets an immediate influence boost when you first meet them, you know exactly how much you get and how long it will last. In comparison the Germany mechanic feels a bit clunky. If there was a way to solve that more elegantly, I think it would be really great.
UU: I like the new Tercio version a lot. Its a good solid unit, the new +30% on max hp is a nice mechanic that is solid but not OP. The ability to spam them out rapidly in a hotzone is a really cool ability that feels unique to Germany. My only concern is that the Fusilier that follows gets everything from the unit, which creates some really strong Fusiliers. But in the long run its hard to go OP with melee units, compared to American Musketman -> gatling guns, I don't think the abilities are too strong. Overall, really like this change.
New CS Quests
Coup X CS: Its a fine quest that I think is overtuned at the moment (or simply that coup's are too easy, see my notes below). This gives a LOT of GP points, like a ton of them, for a pretty simple action.
Gift X Unit: A solid benefit, good frequency, a very nice addition.
Units
Slinger: The new slinger is a very strong unit for what it is at that point in the game. I have tried getting an extra warrior or an extra slinger, and so far I've been hard pressed to find a reason to the warrior. The slinger is tough even to take barb hits and clears camps and barbs a lot faster than a warrior thinks to the lack of counter damage.
Archer: I already made my thread about the power of this unit. I'm going to try a few more runs to see if I change my mind, but I do think the unit is too strong at the moment. Ultimately I think the RCS is fine, but its too tanky....and also its upgrade cost from the slinger is really cheap...which augments the power of a slinger -> archer rush.
Skirmisher: I think we could drop the CS on this unit by 1. It currently is the tankiest unit of its time in open field, even Formation II spears (which are designed to rip apart horse units in theory) take almost as much damage as they deal. That's just too much for a unit that is supposed to run not stand there and take it. This combined with the loss of the cbow (which was its real counter) makes it the most dominant unit by far on the right terrain.
Trade Deals
Lux Trading: So it took getting used to the idea that the AI would often not buy my luxs, but once I got used to it, it makes sense to me. Yes it means luxs aren't as coveted as they were before, but they are still good yield tiles that I want, so I never found myself ignoring them. My only issue here is the wide variance in trade deals from the AI. Early game, most of the time they want 2 GPT for a lux...fine. Once in a while, 6 GPT....great. And then.... 22 GPT!!! I have seen 60 GPT deals in the late game! I get that the AI generally wants it for a WLTKD, which makes perfect sense, but every so often they just go off the rails on their valuation.
"What makes this deal work" button - Just wanted to give a shout out. The fact that this button consistently works now is just a godsend, makes things so much better. Thank you!
New Resources
Corn / Rice: This seems fine. The pictures are a little "colorful" compared to the standard ones which makes them stick out a bit, but the yields are fine, I haven't noticed them coming up too often or too little. I personally don't know how much they add to the game but I don't think it detracts any so bring em on.
Naval Movement
Galleass: Big fan of the new change to its movement. It gives the ship enough mobility to actually be a worthy ship, but the caravel is still very important for crossing oceans and still has much greater mobility because of it. Its a very nice balance.
Corvette/Ironclad Speed Nerf: I don't remember when but at some point these ships were dropped down to 4 speed. Ultimately, I think its a good change. The speed prevents crazy sneak attacks from the fog of war, and forces you to maneuver your forces more. It also reduces the power of larger navies so they can't maneuver around each other as easily. While its annoying to move a navy across any distance, I think the change is ultimately for the better.
AI Aggression
So after 4 games I'm seeing the same behavior, could be a coincidence but I'll note it. The AI seems extremely passive in the early game. Basically I never got attacked until Renaissance, even when I'm barely making army. I remember a time when if you didn't have your medieval techs in order you were going to get run over by the pain train, now the AI just lets me plod along with no issue.
Happiness
Happiness on Immortal has been a non-issue to me so far except right after a conquest. I almost never care about my happiness nowadays. I am fine with that personally but making the note.
Spy System
So the spy system is the biggest change, so I'll dig in.
Coups: CS coups seem way too easy right now. Its basically almost 75% or higher chance to succeed, and you can do it with level 1 spies. I quickly found coups were the best use of my spies.
City Sabotage: So the new quest here deals 100 damage to the city and stops healing for like 3-5 turns. It takes like 8ish turns to Travel and Surveil to a city, and then 1-2 turns normally to sabotage (assuming a low security city). I found that too long for the city I was actively going after, I almost always had the city taken care of before the spy did anything. However, as an opening move before I start a war, or maybe putting that on the second city while I'm working the first one.... that could be doable. I think its probably reasonable, its not fast enough to be hyper usable (which could be too strong, if I can slap a blockade on every city I attack I'm unstoppable), but fast enough with a little planning I can probably make good use of it.
Yield Siphons: I found a consistent pattern in my siphons:
Ultimately I think this new system is workable, it just needs numbers adjustment. Either the security bump for a siphon needs to be toned down, the yield siphon increased, the travel/setup time greatly decreased....something needs to get changed to make it viable. But the core system seems solid.
Germany
I tried out the new Germany several times.
UA: It creates a unique playstyle with the notion of pounding out units instead of rushing to emissaries to snag a few CS allies. Its also a nice synergy with the new "gift a unit" type CS quests. Ultimately, I didn't find it terribly powerful, but it helps a bit. My biggest issue with it is the "UI" of it, I had situations where I gifted a unit and got no benefit because the CS instantly upgraded them, and the amount of benefit you get is highly variable because of that. Contrasted with Siam that gets an immediate influence boost when you first meet them, you know exactly how much you get and how long it will last. In comparison the Germany mechanic feels a bit clunky. If there was a way to solve that more elegantly, I think it would be really great.
UU: I like the new Tercio version a lot. Its a good solid unit, the new +30% on max hp is a nice mechanic that is solid but not OP. The ability to spam them out rapidly in a hotzone is a really cool ability that feels unique to Germany. My only concern is that the Fusilier that follows gets everything from the unit, which creates some really strong Fusiliers. But in the long run its hard to go OP with melee units, compared to American Musketman -> gatling guns, I don't think the abilities are too strong. Overall, really like this change.
New CS Quests
Coup X CS: Its a fine quest that I think is overtuned at the moment (or simply that coup's are too easy, see my notes below). This gives a LOT of GP points, like a ton of them, for a pretty simple action.
Gift X Unit: A solid benefit, good frequency, a very nice addition.
Units
Slinger: The new slinger is a very strong unit for what it is at that point in the game. I have tried getting an extra warrior or an extra slinger, and so far I've been hard pressed to find a reason to the warrior. The slinger is tough even to take barb hits and clears camps and barbs a lot faster than a warrior thinks to the lack of counter damage.
Archer: I already made my thread about the power of this unit. I'm going to try a few more runs to see if I change my mind, but I do think the unit is too strong at the moment. Ultimately I think the RCS is fine, but its too tanky....and also its upgrade cost from the slinger is really cheap...which augments the power of a slinger -> archer rush.
Skirmisher: I think we could drop the CS on this unit by 1. It currently is the tankiest unit of its time in open field, even Formation II spears (which are designed to rip apart horse units in theory) take almost as much damage as they deal. That's just too much for a unit that is supposed to run not stand there and take it. This combined with the loss of the cbow (which was its real counter) makes it the most dominant unit by far on the right terrain.
Trade Deals
Lux Trading: So it took getting used to the idea that the AI would often not buy my luxs, but once I got used to it, it makes sense to me. Yes it means luxs aren't as coveted as they were before, but they are still good yield tiles that I want, so I never found myself ignoring them. My only issue here is the wide variance in trade deals from the AI. Early game, most of the time they want 2 GPT for a lux...fine. Once in a while, 6 GPT....great. And then.... 22 GPT!!! I have seen 60 GPT deals in the late game! I get that the AI generally wants it for a WLTKD, which makes perfect sense, but every so often they just go off the rails on their valuation.
"What makes this deal work" button - Just wanted to give a shout out. The fact that this button consistently works now is just a godsend, makes things so much better. Thank you!
New Resources
Corn / Rice: This seems fine. The pictures are a little "colorful" compared to the standard ones which makes them stick out a bit, but the yields are fine, I haven't noticed them coming up too often or too little. I personally don't know how much they add to the game but I don't think it detracts any so bring em on.
Naval Movement
Galleass: Big fan of the new change to its movement. It gives the ship enough mobility to actually be a worthy ship, but the caravel is still very important for crossing oceans and still has much greater mobility because of it. Its a very nice balance.
Corvette/Ironclad Speed Nerf: I don't remember when but at some point these ships were dropped down to 4 speed. Ultimately, I think its a good change. The speed prevents crazy sneak attacks from the fog of war, and forces you to maneuver your forces more. It also reduces the power of larger navies so they can't maneuver around each other as easily. While its annoying to move a navy across any distance, I think the change is ultimately for the better.
AI Aggression
So after 4 games I'm seeing the same behavior, could be a coincidence but I'll note it. The AI seems extremely passive in the early game. Basically I never got attacked until Renaissance, even when I'm barely making army. I remember a time when if you didn't have your medieval techs in order you were going to get run over by the pain train, now the AI just lets me plod along with no issue.
Happiness
Happiness on Immortal has been a non-issue to me so far except right after a conquest. I almost never care about my happiness nowadays. I am fine with that personally but making the note.
Spy System
So the spy system is the biggest change, so I'll dig in.
Coups: CS coups seem way too easy right now. Its basically almost 75% or higher chance to succeed, and you can do it with level 1 spies. I quickly found coups were the best use of my spies.
City Sabotage: So the new quest here deals 100 damage to the city and stops healing for like 3-5 turns. It takes like 8ish turns to Travel and Surveil to a city, and then 1-2 turns normally to sabotage (assuming a low security city). I found that too long for the city I was actively going after, I almost always had the city taken care of before the spy did anything. However, as an opening move before I start a war, or maybe putting that on the second city while I'm working the first one.... that could be doable. I think its probably reasonable, its not fast enough to be hyper usable (which could be too strong, if I can slap a blockade on every city I attack I'm unstoppable), but fast enough with a little planning I can probably make good use of it.
Yield Siphons: I found a consistent pattern in my siphons:
- It took roughly 8-9ish turns for a spy to set up in a new city (travel time + surveillance).
- Almost every city that I had not touched had a bare minimum security (aka I never saw how constabularies did anything). This meant a 2 turn siphon most of the time.
- I get the siphon with a reasonably low chance of identify/kill.
- Then the security shoots up to max, and now its ~19ish turns to get a siphon. That in itself is not a problem (just means I get a big steal at the end). However, the identification is normally 90-99%, and most concerning, the kill is like 30-40% or more. So assuming I get kicked out every time I do the second steal and go to a new city, I am basically gaining 5.25 turns of yields (21 turns * 25%) for 29 turns of spy time (2 turns + 19 turns + 8 turns of setup). If that was everything....that MIIIIGHT be viable. But then you have the kill chance. So ignoring the loss of spy Xp for the moment, it takes like 10 turns to get your spy back. So on average that's another 4ish turns (10 turns lost * 30-40% chance), so we are at 33 turns of spy time. Its just not worth it imo.
Ultimately I think this new system is workable, it just needs numbers adjustment. Either the security bump for a siphon needs to be toned down, the yield siphon increased, the travel/setup time greatly decreased....something needs to get changed to make it viable. But the core system seems solid.