My notes so far having done a number of Turn 200ish runs. I will give more feedback in the late game as I settle into to some longer ones.
Withdraw
Only seen it with Jinete, but so far it seems really good. because any jinette unit I need to use horses against, they are very slippery against basic melee.
Beliefs
Universalism: No direct experience yet, feels weak in just my pursual (everytime I go to select a belief, I look at this one, but just can't find myself pulling the trigger).
God of War: Honestly even with the nerf still feels like a very strong pantheon, its still the go to for war civs imo.
CS Quests
Enjoying the new france, I will say being able to retreat your stolen units (or pillage with them!) is a big difference maker in their utility. The +1 culture to all cities is a nice benefit but its definately not the main stay, it takes a long time to build up the kind of numbers to see some real culture boosting.
Golden Age
I think the first golden age is now a bit too slow, probably want to find a middle ground between the old number and new one.
Difficulty Adjustments
Drill Changes
I do think the new drill is an improvement over the old one, but its not a night and day difference, at least as much as I thought at first glance. At the end of the day, I still find archers are more important to city taking than melee drill units. Aka if I have warriors + archers, I can do work. If I instead upgraded to spears....I'll have a great first couple of round hits, but then my forces get too beat up and I normally have to retreat).
Galley Changes
So far I am not a fan of this change. The galley is a weak unit, it can't counter the liburna. So the liburna rules the seas until philosophy. So for example CS, most of them are on teh coast, and if they bring out a liburna it is very difficult to take them, archers can't fight them, you need cbows which take a long time to get, galleys don't count them, so they are almost invincible in this window of the game. Personally I am missing the old system, I think the sea units while rarer all had a strong niche and window.
National Wonders
I think the pop requirement is still too high, even if I have a 6 city empire (which I do not consider "wide"), it takes enormous pop requirements to get wonders like the iron works.
Withdraw
Only seen it with Jinete, but so far it seems really good. because any jinette unit I need to use horses against, they are very slippery against basic melee.
Beliefs
Universalism: No direct experience yet, feels weak in just my pursual (everytime I go to select a belief, I look at this one, but just can't find myself pulling the trigger).
God of War: Honestly even with the nerf still feels like a very strong pantheon, its still the go to for war civs imo.
CS Quests
- Find city x: I like this a lot better.
- Gift Unit X: I think its a good change, still a good quest I am still using it, but not quite as easy to do.
- Find Area X: I think this one is often just too far away to complete, its very tricky.
- In general, its a bit overtuned. I'm looking at 3 areas:
- Its too easy to get like 40-50 gold on a tribute from just your starting warrior and pathfinder. That's a really big boost in the early game for a minimum of cost (just the loss of the first quest, and frankly sometimes you can't really get that quest anyway).
- I think the base gold is probably too high.
- The authority culture from tribute might be too high, but that's debatable. We need to either/both lower the base gold/culture generation.
- Conversely the heavy tribute isn't feeling all that strong. A big factor is that going to war with a CS resets the quests, and without killing the CS units getting to 100% tribute can be very tough. Right now the gold benefits feels like the real prize, the quest benefits are secondary.
Enjoying the new france, I will say being able to retreat your stolen units (or pillage with them!) is a big difference maker in their utility. The +1 culture to all cities is a nice benefit but its definately not the main stay, it takes a long time to build up the kind of numbers to see some real culture boosting.
Golden Age
I think the first golden age is now a bit too slow, probably want to find a middle ground between the old number and new one.
Difficulty Adjustments
- I think the AI is notably stronger now, especially on culture. The AI will now run away with culture like it does with science, but the culture rubberband is a lot weaker in the game.
Drill Changes
I do think the new drill is an improvement over the old one, but its not a night and day difference, at least as much as I thought at first glance. At the end of the day, I still find archers are more important to city taking than melee drill units. Aka if I have warriors + archers, I can do work. If I instead upgraded to spears....I'll have a great first couple of round hits, but then my forces get too beat up and I normally have to retreat).
Galley Changes
So far I am not a fan of this change. The galley is a weak unit, it can't counter the liburna. So the liburna rules the seas until philosophy. So for example CS, most of them are on teh coast, and if they bring out a liburna it is very difficult to take them, archers can't fight them, you need cbows which take a long time to get, galleys don't count them, so they are almost invincible in this window of the game. Personally I am missing the old system, I think the sea units while rarer all had a strong niche and window.
National Wonders
I think the pop requirement is still too high, even if I have a 6 city empire (which I do not consider "wide"), it takes enormous pop requirements to get wonders like the iron works.