Okay, playing my first game v12 (snail, giant, rev on, limited religions, mongoose map, immortal --> deity, ruthless ai). Researching Communism now, leading 3 times in score from closest opponent. Here are some thoughts and impressions.
1. Totally and absolutely amazing speed increase. Turns at end industrial era are 2-3 mins (i'm used to have them at 5-15 mins in a few games which made that far). I'm thinking of starting new game on gigantic map.
2. AI - got alot better, they were pretty ahead of me for most of the game. However, i think i can point few weak spots of AI i found in this game:
a) Several times i saw AI bringing far superior attacking stack to enemy city, and then he was standing there like 60-100 turns moving back and forth one tile not attacking. Stack was like 9 heavy xbowmen+ some hvy swords + 15 trebs + some other mixed units against 15 town watchmen + 20 archers (city defence was brought to zero at start). Another situation was city breaking away without troops into new civ, after that strange things happened - civ it broke from and it's neighbour declared war and brought troops there (massive stacks with fanatics/bombards/hvy xbowmen) - defence of city remained 155% ... and so far it it uncoquered - they just were standing around it. Maybe bombards were doing zero damage to fully upgraded medieval city, i dunno ... Also - AI expansion - for some reason they ignore barbarian city near them with almost no defence (3-4 units) and go war on far continent. This AI behavior regarding war and expansion needs to be addressed. In cases where AI could conquer 10-15 cities in 20-40 turns, it spends 100-150 turns and conquers 1-2 cities (some of which it stupidly loses after - stack from my 1st example watched enemy stack of 7-8 enemy war elephant pass by it 1 tile away to freshly conquered city, defended by 2 units and lost that city ...)
b) The key to success in this version is expansion - with all those gold producing buildings and goods all limits and reasons not to expand too much or too early have been removed. The more cities you found - the more resources (and in turn goods some of which give gold in EVERY city) you get access to, negating maintenance costs. I only once had problems with this - didnt have second capital and expanded to 25-30 cities - instability problems began, i solved them first by capturing some enemy towns, then rushing to city planning and building Forbidden Palace.
What is the need for money slider now, besides for prehistoric and early ancient era? No matter what you do, you always swim in cash. Looking into other civ cities (espionage) i see they have 300-500k money at late medieval/early reneissance era.
That brings 2 another issues - trading technologies with cash - i never trade them for cash (cause i dont need it) and always buy for cash when theres an option. And linear expansion which happens pretty early in game, imho this takes away much from game, because stability both financial and revolutions was always key aspect of civ game.
3. My proposals would be
- remove any gold value from goods (and maybe food - we already have too much food in game). Whole goods system should be aimed toward giving ability to build special buildings for special promotions (like bamboo armor and shipyards etc.), not adding raw gold/food for whole empire. production and science bonuses from goods dont seem too overwhelming so far.
- increase maintenance costs for number of cities and distance for early civics (tribalism, chiefdom, slavery, caste, monarchy, despotism) and maybe inflation. Make it optional to test in new games. Shouldn't be hard to implement i think.
- increase revolution penalties for said civics (distance wise). Make it 3 or even 5 times of current, so it wont be possible to expand endlessly early (and harder later on).
4. Some minor imbalances and issues i found:
- Monks and Fanatics getting too much exp (38 exp in current game), produced cheaply and later upgrading to Riflemen with all melee-promotions and exp. Remember money is nothing in this version. Probably upgrade cost should be tripled. After getting Flintlock and Rifling later on there's drastical decrease in exp and promotions new units get (Machine gun and artillery still get all mesopotamism temples promotions btw, same with Asatru mjolnir). Anyway, AI needs to be taught how to utilize this properly (build units with max possible exp/promos, then upgrade them).
- Power lines - i don't really understand idea behind it (and National wonder giving it to ALL cities, when power line in SINGLE city already give power to ALL continent). Makes whole original power (and power plants) concept obsolete. I honestly dont understand how building power lines in corner of continent will provide power to assembly plant on other end of it. This is absolutely unrealistic, i would suggest bringing back original way of spreading electricity.
[edit] There is power generating sources (hydro, coal etc. plants) and power transferring lines. Lines themself cannot and should not generate any power, we still need source. This is very important moment imho.
- Water pipes and Water Dept (whatever it's called) (also cisterns etc.). I never, ever build them in any of my game. Artesian well gives fresh water where i need it bad (tundra or clusters isolated by hills from fresh water), for other cities i just chain build farms to irrigate.
- Buildings like lead mine etc. giving like -2 health +2 hammer. On later game misc. Garnet mines etc. -hp +some gold. Absolutely useless. Maybe it gold issue will be reworked they will become useful again.
- Poacher camp - TOO much money from it.
- Lead - i dont see reason to build mine for lead until Mining inc. corporation. no bonuses - pure unhealthiness, not needed for anything important. I always build another improvement removing access to it once i discover Lead working.
Overall, game became much more challenging and fun, great work guys.
P.s. Glad to see Afforess here !!!
I'm with Bill Maher on this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religulous
