I see that you've added the Urban Warfare promotion, is this the same type of promotion as the "City Raider"? I'd really like to see that promotion extended to all infantry types and not just limited to pre-gunpowder units and maybe marines (forgot if they can access it). It didn't make any sense to me that armor should have access to it when cities tend to be giant coffins for tanks yet infantry (gunpower era) lose access to it.
In the original Civ4, City Raider (CR) is available to all Melee units (axe, sword, mace, etc), Siege units (Catapults, etc) and to Armor (tanks). It has NEVER been available to any Gunpowder units (muskets, rifles, marines, etc) or horse units (cavalry, etc). I've always thought this to be rather backwards, as historically infantry are the city-takers, not tanks.
In this latest version I released, I finally removed CR promotion from Armor... I thought long and hard about giving Gunpowder units the CR series of promotions (CR1, CR2 & CR3), but I thought it was a bit overpowered to give infantry all of these promotions, so instead, I invented a "new" promotion called "Urban Warfare" which is essentially the same as CR1, but it dead-ends there (no Urban Warfare 2 or 3). This is a solution I'm happy with... it gives the "spirit" of the city attack to infantry and away from tanks, without making it too powerful (I thought CR1, 2 & 3 was too much to give to Gunpowder units).
Simply put, modern warfare has more options to level cities then ancient warfare does, so giving all three CR promotions to modern infantry is overkill IMHO... that's why I went with the Urban Warfare Promotion in this version.
Also, would you consider making the ironclad gunboat a UU for the US instead of making it a coastal only ship? I know it has some advantages over the ironclad cruiser and battleship (hate the animated units for both...they need a workover themselves) but when compared to both, it doesn't make much sense to build a coastal only ship when you can access ocean going vessels with better speed and weapon strength.
I'm pretty happy with how Ironclad units are currently... also, as for the "look" of the units, simply put, most ocean-going Ironclads of the 1860s and 1870s were little more then armored versions of frigates and SotL with steam engines tossed-in... you may not like "the look" but it's accurate for ocean going ironclads of the period... in-fact, the "Ironclad Cruiser" is a model of the HMS Warrior... one of the first ocean-going ironclads.
Ironclad Gunboats like the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, while novel (and perhaps "sporty") weren't much compared with the ocean going ironclads, and they weren't seaworthy either. Compared to other navies ocean going ironclads, they weren't very useful, so the fact they are mostly pointless in Civ4 is actually historically correct.
In my current game I have run across a major issue with the AI updating Riflemen to Machine guns. I think MG's need to be removed from the upgrade list as the AI tends to destroy an offensive army of its own by upgrading all riflemen to MG's. I've encountered stack after stack after stack of 20+ MG's, a few cavalry, cannon, and the occasional musketman / rifleman stuck in. What once may have been an ugly army now becomes a relatively weak one. Take out the cavalry and any infantry and you have a force that can't capture anything and can only move 1 space at a time. I've decimated many an AI army cuz of this.
This isn't an "upgrade" issue, it's an AI useage thing... in default Civ4, it's almost impossible to get the AI to build a single MG, especially in city defense. Back in v2.72 I changed the AI's "perception" of the MG where it likes it a lot more now. This was all done by changing the "Civ4UnitInfos.xml" in the Assets/XML/Units directory. See below:
The "UnitAI_City_Special" was an AI routine hardly recognized by the AI. So I added more AI routines which bumped it up the priority list. Maybe I added one too many...
you could try deleting the "UNITAI_COUNTER" which may bring it more in-line with your desires, or you could delete all the tags back to the original, and the AI will almost never build a single MG. The idea with the change was to get the AI to use the MG to defend cities, instead of Riflemen... the AI almost never took advantage of the city-defending abilities of the MG in default Civ4.
Another thing about MG's, they seem to only have access to the Drill promotions and that melee fighting promo (gives 10 or 20% vs melee units). Could we expand this a bit? Maybe include the promotion against cavalry? or give them access to city garrision (this will make them tough but that's what infantry is for)? or even the interception promo's against early fighters / bombers and mid level fighters / light bombers?
This is a problem with the default game... In original Civ4, from BtS v3.13 and earlier, MGs have always been in the "Siege" category (with catapults, cannons and artillery) and got the same promotions... they used to get Combat1, 2 & 3 which opened up a lot of other promos... then in v3.17, Firaxis removed these promotions (and some others) and left MGs with essentially only "DRILL" as the only promotion you could get... this is something Firaxis did in v3.17. I have since reviewed the situation and reversed some things, including moving MGs to a new category (Trench Units) and they now have a lot more combat promotions available to them then before. This is in the current release of the mod.
Lastly, how's about adding in the Tzar tank for the Russians as their Early Tank? I thought that unit was finished already for the Blood and Iron Mod.
So far as I know, the Tsar Tank Civ4 model has not been made available to the public. If I had access to it, I probably would make it an Early Tank flavor unit for Russia.
super-easy to make compatible with my scenario too- now i can check out those Trench unit abilities without playing an early game. great additions in 2.84 btw
