There is discussion, right here. That's what I want. It's better to make changes, test, and discuss than sit around in a committee all day theorizing about what might or might not work. We can test what works, change back what doesn't. We use source control (svn), history of changes are never lost.
I didn't expect that point of view...But in that case...
So, may be we need then two versions - one for bug-fixing and one for testing new ideas?
Right now, there is a large bug in 765 with production overflow that broke my current game.
It is fixed in 772, but also in 772 there is your "testing changes", so I can't simply load 772 for current game. Because this is OCC ( one city challenge ) game, and it completely have no sense with this changes. I will try to take .dll from 772, and .xml "buildingsInfo" from 765, but may be it is a good idea in future to separate fixing bugs and huge untested modifications of balance?
Performance was the least of the problems with trade routes. The largest problem was that it was an opaque, hidden mechanic that gave players no control.
About control - my understanding is right opposite. I know, that I will have a big values of trade routes when my cities is big size, when I in good relationship ( open borders, peace ) with neighbours, especially advanced neighbours, especially overseas. It is control - to enlarge your cities and have peace and good attitude with other civs. If you go for war - you trade values is decreased, sometimes very significantly, if it was a most advanced neighbour. That is control and diplomacy. Like in real world - you don't war with good trade partner.
But in connectness you have no control at all. Have you 20 connected foreign cities or 50 - no matter. Are they big or small, are you cities big or small - no matter. If you declare war - so, 50 will decrease to 40, but - no matter, because even 40 is more then needed. If you have no wonders even 20 is more than you needed. You have no control, all is the same. Yes, it is equalization, but ... not interesting equalization.
About hidden mechanics - it is not hidden, you have hint in city screen, you can read articles or look into the code. There are many such places in civilization, we can not just remove them all.
I know for myself, that I never once considered the diplomatic value of trade routes until after I had removed them and a few players complained
That is the power of forum and discussing - when people notice side, that you never noticed.
Maybe you should run a poll, and find out if anyone other than yourself actually cared?
I think it is a good idea if this poll will have meaning.
From my experience smaller civilizations tend not to keep up in terms of city size and specialization, so flat commerce and yield benefits them more than a multiplier would. Yes, the multiplier reduction hurts big cities. It was ridiculous to have cities with +200% or +150% and +150% . I didn't remove all multipliers because, as you say, it would defeat specialization. It is still very attainable to have +100% or +100% , just harder.
The game is much more balanced now. Before these changes it was necessary to give smaller civilizations 100's or 1000's of free science beakers a turn by tech diffusion just to keep up. Now they can get a fraction of that and still maintain pace.
So, it was my misunderstanding. When you spoke about "small civilizations" I imagined civilization with few cities, but you've meant civilization that behind technological. It was not the same in versions 765 or earlier, because you may have few cities, but with all of this multipliers they can get enough science not to fall behind.
But in current revisions - big cities lost all their strength ( especially science), so you now have only one option - get more cities to win. If there is no place for new cities - then, war. That I meant when said that now game will be more "warmonger".
