I'm a little sceptical about the amount of gold you produced out of guns since they're now so cheap in Europe. I'm even a little sceptical with the new building setup just how you could produce enough guns to make a lot of gold with, considering you'd need a fair amount of buildings to produce a decent armory.
But I've been proven wrong in the past.
If the guns market is too stable, it may need to be released again so it's not proped up. Maybe it should be allowed to crash like it used to?
As for the navy, Revolutionary is supposed to be hard!
No Dale, the price for guns in Europe in my game (1.10, I downloaded yesterday), was 15/18, which beats every other commodity, and of course, is worth the investment, and also it makes your development queue for colonies linear, simple and manageable, so it is really worth it. Not to mention Gunsmith and Blacksmiths have the tendency to spawn on the dock early in the game too.
Maybe if the price of guns was 5/18 then it's the end of this method,
(suppose Europe wants to prevent the people in the new world to have any power from the start, they state-control the weapon market). but I wonder whether it is historically correct anymore?
What is more, the other commodities, although they might require simpler setups, look at the price: cloth ~8/9, coat ~8/9, cigars 8/9 (~50% of guns), there's only rum left at an GOOD price, in my last 3 games, always ~12/13, bun then, would you run around the map search for marsh and sugarcane fields?, the raw materials for guns is on the other hand, always there, they MUST be there (ore), it's a necessity. And the market seems very stable too! (I guess to prevent people from buying guns from Europe, gun price is more stable?).
As for the Navy, and also issues like these, I enjoy really hard games very much, it forces you to think and develop strategies, or workarounds, but it should be enjoy able. Like, if you manage to develop such a strong navy, there must be a threshold upon which, no matter how hard the level, you have control of the high seas? Navy is part of the game, if not to say crucial historically, so there should be a race there, so fun there, emphasis there, not avoidance?
The patch does an awesome job of making the development process so much more enjoyable, with so many steps and buildings, not to mention nice touches that I noticed here and there, I am enjoying the game so much more than back in Vanilla (when it really SUCKED!) but of course, as human player, we will always find out ways to circumvent (reads
exploit).
The bottom line is, I think, the most enjoyable game is when you strive for balance on all fields, thus efficient management. And I think, every single thing that a player even enjoys in this game should still be there (this was a so so game from the start, so those moments are worth it), but it's just more challenging to archive it.
Balance, not
prevention.
