As suggested by Gazebo, I'll re-post my impressions from another thread
Might also add some comments about various aspects of the game
- As mentioned before, the CS-Diplo system needs work. Diplomacy units are so utterly overpowered, that all other means to get influence become irrelevant. Why bother going Arsenal of Democracy and gifting units, when a single Ambassador gives me 90 Inf alone? Why sending Cargo Ships using nerfed Treaty Organization? Council enactments like Cold War make it even less attractive. Instead just Ambassador-bomb the CS, they are cheap to build, and so fast, that running into Paper supply issues never becomes a problem.
I'd suggest to either limit the ability to send Diplos to CSs to like one every 30 turns or so, or to make them weaker, or to make other Influence options more attractive. I also don't understand why gold bribes have been turned off. Swinging the cash hammer should still be an option, imo.
- AI behaviour seems odd at times, especially during wars. War Score doesn't seem to influence their decision making at all. I can be >70 for ages, and they still refuse to consider peace. They are extremely stubborn, just to fall into the other extreme, when deciding to offer peace at last. The weirdest thing happened to me with Korea. He declared on me, I took 2 of his smaller cities to make a path to Seoul, and took it, to. After that, the war went on for like 40 turns with me just fending off an occasional unit or two, nothing really major. All of a sudden he comes out with a peace offer: all his gold(around 5000), 300gpt, all his luxxes, and best of all, Capitulation. Well, guess I welcome my new vassal...
I mean, yeah I took his capital, but his empire was still in a reasonable shape, and our armies were comparable in size and tech level. It seems a bit overboard.
- I don't understand some of the diplomacy modifiers, like "They know you're competing, and they hate it". Erm, of course we do, since T1, to be precise, that is the idea of the game. Or "Your behaviour infuriates them". What behaviour exactly? These modifiers seem rather arbitrary, just to make your life harder without any specific justification.
- Corporations seem to be a bit odd. The AIs build them, too, but so far I seem the only one who actually spreads offices. I yet have to see a foreign corp in one of my cities. So while I generate enormous amounts of additional wealth, from my own corp, the AIs totally underutilize theirs.
-Social Policies are not balanced very well. I really like the general idea behind the redesign. Imperialism looks so much more sound and coherent than Exploration, Piety is so nice, that I actually went Piety because I wanted to, outside of just experimenting, etc.
However, some Policies are so much stronger than others, that they are becoming no-brainers in comparison. Patronage is really weak, even more so due to the Diplo units. Aesthetics doesn't offer large enough benefits to prefer it over Industry, even if you want to focus on your culture game. Progress seems to be completely broken. Every time I hover over my cities, there's a large number of all kinds of modfiers popping up.
-Tourism boosts from completing CS-Quests and winning wars are way too high. I'm influential or dominant on half of the AIs, and at least familiar with the rest, without even trying for cultural victory.
- Perhaps it is intentional, but after a while all tile yields seem to be through the roof. Be it through tech advancements, or GPs. Coastal Tundra city with Pop 49 on T500(epic speed)? No problem.
Everything does get bigger and better over time, feels rather natural. If the game is balanced around that however is another question.
I do like the current system a lot better than the vanilla one where you couldn't found a city post medieval because it would never catch up enough to be anything other than a drain on your resources.
Guess, I think it is subjective to everyone's view.
From my point of view, it renders the factor Terrain almost irrelevant, when choosing a settlement location. Also, it does nothing to catching up, as the big cities just continue to grow like crazy.
My Pop49 Tundra city still has around +115 food/turn and grows every 7 turns
There are also things that seem to rather illogical to me.
For example, why does a Town provide me with 9 food, regardless of the terrain it is settled on? For me, a town consists of another bunch of eaters, who of all things should consume food, rather than providing it.
I think there should be at least a little more emphasis on making decisions and trade offs, rather than providing "you win"-buttons left and right.
It's a minor nitpick, and nothing that would spoil the overall experience, just voicing my opinion.
