1.)It should reduce population, but not by half. As tanks are rolling in, and infantry are firing on occupied forces (or, for earlier in the game, the sky darkens as indirect arrows are unleashed), there's going to be cross-fire and collateral damage. But agree there should be some accounting for the fact that you're going to be a lot more weary of your own civilians than a conqueror would.
Fair enough, updating my post
2.) I also have qualms with this mechanic, but not the same. I find it more frustrating that the unit in the city is untouchable - It's like the kid on the playground touching the slide and yelling, "base!" And if this unit is ranged, it can be an extra free attack. And the worst game mechanic is allowing one ranged land unit to fire (with impunity), one ranged naval unit to fire (with impunity) and the city bombard (with impunity.) Defeats the purpose of 1UPT. I suggest the opposite of what you're suggesting; if a unit is in the city, the attacker hits the unit first and only does damage after the unit is killed.
I thought of this as well, but this issue is they can keep spamming 1-turn units so you can't touch the city if this is the case without a large army. Also walls/defenses ARE supposed to protect the unit some imo so I'm still in favor of taking down defenses THEN dealing with the unit. However, collateral damage from a bombardment is fair. Maybe there could even be a special unit/attack that targets the garrison later.
3.)Never found this to be that problematic. The problem that I have is archaeologists should be able to stack with units they are not at war with. This kills your ability to "claim" dig sites by placing a military unit over it before your archaeologist is ready (which is a rather cheesy tactic) and removes the headache of trying to get a site in CS territory when they have 8 units that are playing musical chairs between rounds, just moving back and forth, keeping you waiting for that one lucky turn when no one is standing on the site.
There are lots of classes of units that could stack without hurting 1 UPT gameplay so they don't route off roads to avoid each other, etc. It's just weird. Personally I'd be in favor of religious civilians being stackable with workers, and GP as well.
4.)eh... I think a better rule would be that you are allowed to remove any road that you are paying maintenance for, whether it's in your territory or not.
5.)Nope. Sorry, that's the price of playing at higher levels, and if you start the game insistent on founding a religion, your choices are picking a civ that gets a bonus to founding, or playing a lower difficulty level. Posts on the forum also suggest that some of the people with more mastery of the game and are playing on higher levels need to learn how to play through a game where they didn't found a religion. The AI needs pottery to be one of the free techs because it leads to writing and calendar, too.
I suggested they keep it on Deity--I'm fine with the highest levels having the difficulty. I just don't like that it is the first free tech. If it was the 2nd or 3rd free tech at least the problem wouldn't present as early as King. To be fair I do play on immortal and I usually get a decent religion anyway, but it is annoying chasing the pantheon chain sometimes. I feel religion, inherently, should be more even. I'd be happier if they got any other bonus but that one because religions make a game fun and diverse and you lose something if you don't get to play with them.
6.) Agreed
7.) As the game was in Vanilla, disagree - smaller empires needed a bonus. As the game is now, definitely. Also think that building prerequisites should switch from "all cities" to "all cities or 4 cities, whichever is fewer."
Wide empires get other kinds of bonuses. I think national wonders were a way of buffing smaller play so I'm fine with the prereqs. It's just the scaling cost that makes little sense. In my wider games a national wonder can take as long as building Leaning Tower which means I don't have time for many of them till later.
8.) not concerned. If a player considers selling a worthless city too cheesy, don't do it.
I already choose not to do it. To clarify I dont' want the mechanic removed just think the AI shoul d be better at evaluating the value. They shouldn't pay 37 gpt for a worthless ice city and they sometimes due just on the territory score or however they evaluate it.
9.) but then they have to change the pillage mechanic - wartime shouldn't just be for when you're ready to go on a conquering spree, there should also be a way to do what the Vikings did. Pillaging tiles is the closest that there is in this game...
Totally agree. Pillaging is awesome and shouldn't change in principle. It just doesn't make sense that you can repillage a farm you rebuilt. I'd also be fine with just disabling the repillaging but I presume that would require changes to the base game instead of a simple fix.
10.) not that big of a deal. If the minimum duration is longer, it just leads players from "single worker-steal mode" to "experience farming mode." I think a more appropriate change would be for the specific CS you declared war on to have a different disposition towards you...
This "wariness" already happens after 2 attacks and they are left on -60 reputation with you so I think they already tried to do what you say. I still think the peace on the same turn thing is weird and unnatural. They do it even if they could destroy that lame scout you captured with which is why I'm in favor of you needing to wait 1-2 turns. Then you'd have to use a real military unit or a smarter snipe and it wouldn't be so easy and inconsequential. I'd also be in favor of attacked CS not being your friends/allies for longer (-120 maybe) but the real issue to me is that you can peace out same turn which means you can always steal that worker with anything that comes by no consequences but a few turns of rep. Which hardly matters with some CS and the length of the early game. They'll be back to neutral and allies in no time.
11.)If I'm understanding this right, it changes all lump sum trades to GPT trades. Since we already have GPT trades, it removes lump sum from the game. Not a fan.
Not exactly. The difference is that a lump trade gives you the money right away whereas gpt gives it over time. I'm just adding commitment to the deal to make it less abuseable. It makes sense that if you are still friends with the friend you'd honor the deal. You agreed to 30 turns of horses, why should you get away with only 2 if you recover your horses a few turns later? If you lose friendship status or attack the other player you can still get off without paying in my system (see fine notes)
12.)agreed.
13.)Nah. I like the current way. Science, Dom, and Diplo Victories are essentially the same from Settler to Deity. Culture is different, though. Lower levels are about turtling, watching borders, building wonders, and bee-lining tourism buildings. Deity is about targeting the culture civs and taking their tourism generators, if someone is out of reach, annihilation is a backdoor option. The mid-tier levels (for me, Immortal is the sweet spot), is where you can sway from one strategy to the other and/or incorporate elements of both.
A lot of players prefer it this way. It does seem to conflict with the idea of a culture win in my mind as you are supposed to impress the world and I doubt the citizens of that great culture you just subjugated suddenly love and are impressed by you. But from a gameplay standpoint I understand you. You don't want to click through 50 peaceful turns on deity to win. Domination would still help though as it stops their culture from climbing further. It just wouldn't mean an instant win which would be more realistic. Heritage and memory takes time to fade. 
14.)Again, more concerned with the opposite. I want a GE who qualifies for building the wonder in one turn to get it instantly. Absolute most annoying thing is spending a GE on a wonder, having someone else finish it that very turn, and having it cash out. For this reason, I save before GE-bulbing, as this is, IMO, the single most justifiable circumstance to reload, and is such because of a poor game mechanic.
This makes sense from an ease of gameplay perspective but not for realism. If you hurry something it should still consume the production of the city for that turn. It only makes sense. However, to prevent the loss of a hurried wonder, maybe what can happen is the buildings get left on 0 turns and you get them after you click continue at the end of your turn instead of after the AI. This effectively limits the purchases to 1/turn as I want but means you can't lose wonders. It's like it took a turn but you are guaranteed to get it.
15.)Symptomatic of a bigger problem - the AI not understanding proper routing strategy and risks. Finding a way to fix this will inherently fix the embarkation problem.
I know, but that's a big problem, I was focusing on smaller bits that could possibly be fixed in a quick patch to improve the issue. (see title of thread )
16.)meh - if this was really that big of a problem, we wouldn't focus-fire the way we do, especially on defense.
17.) probably should have been changed when they changed the formula for RAs. But, if my understanding is correct, the change went from "rich getting richer" to "both sides get the same amount." If both sides get the same amount, neither side should pay more. Rather, they should consider how advanced the two parties involved in the research agreement are in comparison with the rest of the world, and research agreements between two advanced nations should be considerably more than one between two third world nations trying to make much simpler discoveries.
It is the same amount of beakers, however those beakers mean far more to the AI that is behind. If I recall the boost is the sum of the average bpt for 2 turns from each civ. But relatively-speaking that could mean 10 turns for the behind guy and 2-3 turns for you. This is why their propensity to make you pay for deals when you are ahead makes little sense. I'd be in favor of them always being flat as well but if they were going to charge someone it should be the behind guy since they get a massive benefit from the more advanced civ. irl the current system would be like some backwards nation like Sudan charging us to open our labs and research to them. That makes no sense as they get virtually all the benefit and are contributing very little. But this is what every backwards AI insists on when they are behind and ask for an RA. It definitely seems coded backwards
Either that or consider it in what they offer and offer very little for such cities.
