Ok I just played a couple of turn and here are my main thoughts :
1) Tech tree : whatever happens with it, make the place between the roman techs shorter! Why are the 2 last techs so far away that you got almost to scroll during 2-3 minutes to see them
? Just need a bit of reordering. Also, some techs got so many things in them that the little pictures of buildings/units given are going over the next techs. For the cost of the first tech, I believe it is okay. 11 turns at 90% and 13 at 80% doing -3gpt and +1 respectively.
2) Speed : I really don't understand why it is so slow simply to move my units. It seems that their is a lag of about 2-3 sec between when I right click a unit to move it and the moment I see the white thing saying the number of turns to go there. Maybe it is an issue with too many coding : if the comp must check every turn things such as where certain units are or if certain things have happened, it is going to slow down the entire game. And I don't want even to think about the nightmare this is going to cause when we have all the cities placed.
3) Buildings : I was surprised to see all the buildings available to me! I understand most of these are from TAM but some of them souldn't be buildable by the Romans. Ex : burial mound which seems more like a barb building or Obelisk which should be Egyptian. Also, I can build 3 obsolete wonders from the start, mainly Stonehenge, Oracle and the Tower of Babel. You also forgot to add the religious temple for Rome and its monastery to convert other cities to Roman faith.
4) Slaves revolt : Perharps you should rename this as in RFRE civ 3, it was a Peltastae Samniti which spawned and servus seditiosus spawned if the first unit was victorious in combat. A more apropriate name would be local tribes revolt. Also a little bug : a tribus barbarus appeared with the Servus seditiosus. I don't know if it is intentional or not.
5) Units : The missionary for the roman faith doesn't exist so I can't spread my faith. The multiple bonus/minus that all units receive can become confusing at times as I don't know who is a light/medium/heavy unit. I also think that you could add perhaps another velites in every city and add a Legio up north at start. The hero/consular lego unit is cool but not that powerful. Basically it only add +20% withdrawal chance and +20 strength. Maybe add directly 1 or 2 attack power to make the legio go from 7 to 9. The ram and siege towers are cool but you should allow more of them. 2 rams and 2 siege towers will not be enough when faec with multiple fronts war such as taking on Greece and Iberia or Gaul and Parthia.
6) Battles : The battle with Pyrrus is well balanced. I didn't lose any units althought it came close. It takes then 3 turns to take out their 2 cities if you ahve no initial loss. I haven't started the Punic war yet but I'll tell more later on.
7) Religions : too many religions in the state religion panel makes them go over the screen to the right. Also, it makes everyone hate me since we all have different religions.
8) Diplo : I can't do anything here. Everyone is cautious with me and no one wnats to trade maps or open borders. Since there is also no ressource to trade and no one has gold, it is a bit boring on that level.
9)Civics : The governements civics are a bit redondant. Plus, there is only one which is good, namely the Republic. The legal needs to be revamped. There was a justice system in Rome at 275Bc and it wasn't barbarism. Perhaps a good starting legal civic for every civilized nation would be "Court of law" (low upkeep, +10% commerce in every city because people are more willing to trade if their rights are somewhat protected). As a nation expands like Rome, Praetor would be needed to supress the growing city upkeep. Then, Imperial administration instead of forum. However, Imperial administration effect need to be stronger then those of Praetor, else why would I change? I propose :
Praetor --> medium upkeep, -25% distance to palace maintenance, -50% number of city maintenance
Imperial administration --> high upkeep, -10% commerce per city (corruption), -30% distance to palace maintenance, -65% number of city maitenance
Ius Civiles --> low upkeep, -15% distance to palace maintenance, -25% number of city maintenance, +100% culture, +2 happyness per city, +20% commerce, +1 trade route
Somewhere along those lines should be a nice progression from city states to Republic to Empire to Byzantine kingdom/empire.
For labor civics, I propose :
Tribalism --> no change, barbs initial civics
Peasantry --> free peasants work the field, low upkeep, +10% commerce per city as they support the economy, -1 happyness from being concripted every now and then, allows rushing with gold
Slavery --> high upkeep, +1 gold per farm/mine (they are cheap labor), -2 happyness (from citizens with no work and unhappy slaves), +100% gold upon city capture (confiscate ennemy property), +1 free slave for every 4 pop point upon city conquest, allows rushing with both pop and gold(as such this civic is supposed to be good as long as you keep capturing cities, if your momentum stops, it should start costing you a lot)
Serfdom --> medium upkeep, +50% slave rate, stops the creation of new slaves, +50% enginneer rate, -10% science per city (doesn't encourage thinking), +20% commerce per city (allows a more efficient economy than slavery), +1 food per farm/mine, +1 happyness per city (poor are convinced by the religion that they will go to heaven), allows gold rushing, -5 happyness per city in civ that do not have serfdom (this ensure that barbs eventually change from migration civic to serfdom)
Migration --> no change, barb invasion time civic
For economy :
Traditional --> barb initial civic, low upkeep, -1 trade routes
Coinage --> civilized starting civics, low upkeep, +1 trade routes, +10% commerce in 6 biggest city (big cities are natural commercial center)
Plutocracy --> Rome's economy has developed to a new level, medium upkeep, +20% commerce per cities, +5% science, no foreign trade routes, -1 happyness per city (resentement toward the ruing class), +1 gold per cottage/hamlet/village/town, +25% hammers when constructing a building
Centralization --> Rome is supported by the provinces (Pax Romana), high upkeep, +60% commerce in 15 biggest city, -10% commerce in every city, +6 happyness in 15 biggest city, -2 happyness per city, no foreign trade routes, +1 trade route per city, +2 gold per village/town, +50% war wearinness, +1 food for workshop
Aristocracy --> warrior-class aristocracy, answer to the barbs advance, medium upkeep, -4 healthyness per city (toward the end, rich people preferred to make huge offerings to God and build temples rather than build public bath and such), -10% number of city maintenance, +25% military unit production, -50% war wearinness, roads give +1 commerce (hopefully, barbs will take care of remaining roads
) as they became vital mean of communication/movement, +1 hammer per village/town, +25% rate of return when building wealth in a city (meaning instead of converting 50% hammers into gold, you get 75% converted)
For Religious :
Druidic/barbarous faith --> low upkeep, barb starting civic, +50% culture
Organized religion --> starting civics for most civilized civs, low upkeep, -75% temple/sancutaries/whatever-religious-building build cost in city with your religion, missionaries can be built without a monastery, double happyness effect of temple, temple/monastery produce 1 gold if it is your sate religion, -1 gold if it is not
Theocracy --> high upkeep, -20% science, +6 happyness per city (we all go to heaven!), -2 diplo with every civ (your people is feeling too superior toward others), +1 food per farm/mine/workshop (make babies, lots of them, and work to feed them! so says god), unlimited priests specialists, -10 happyness in city without your religion, +4 exp per new units, no non state religion spread, +10% for units defending a city with your religion
God king --> medium upkeep, ???, haven't thought that one out
Free religion ??? Crusade??? I really don't know for a fifth
I just realised that I forgot to play with the number of specialists! Maybe free merchants for some or free artists, etc.
What would be interesting also is a 6 column with military civics. Mainly, they could change waht happens with newly conquered cities or change the way you produce your army (1 gpt cost per unit for this civic and 2 gpt cost for this civic) I won't lauch myself into that one for now.
10) Cartage accepted to give me 2 gpt in tribute when I asked. I think they think they aren't strong enough to declare war on Rome. Perhaps giving them the equivalent of animus barbarus would help or making the city of Messana a high priority with them.
That's all for now. I can tell you more later. I hoped it helped
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It would be grand if *anything* got logged, so progress has been slow of late. I thought all of the CTDs wouldn't come till the custom python code was added :/
Pyyrus is still to difficult for the AI to defeat rapidly. More legions!
!
I let AIautoplay go for 10 turns and now there are slaves everywhere! Just like the AI, 1/job, and at slave work rates it will take a long time to get anything done.
The Social War needs to be added. Unfortunately I've not played the 100BC scenario yet :/
