I have found that playing civ with a small amount of imagination adds to the game immensely. In this post as well as the prologue to your story you talk about how the game treats civs as unified states even though they were actually confederations, however I think it is important to keep in mind that what the game is portraying is civilizations, not states. So in your example you talk about the HRE being a confederation not a state, however, using the common definition, ie a group with similar language, culture, shared traditions etc, it is most definitely a common civilization. (for more on the status of the HRE, read back in the thread. There has been much discussion and future plans for the HRE/Germany)
So we have a game where we are given control of a cultural group, and then are tasked with creating a state for that civ. RFC mechanics have given us the opportunity to portray that civ in a historical context but, and this is important, also allows es the ability to play out alt-historic scenarios. What Leoreth has tried to do, in part, with this mod is tweak the mechanics to help the probability of a historic scenario from playing out but more importantly, to enhance the balancing and gameplay aspects of the original mod. The choice is ours whether or not we choose to play it out historically or not, but more importantly, imo, the game allows for enough variety to keep the game fresh.
See, while I agree that the civs of the game represent cultures, not just unified countries, I see a litle discrepancy in the system. The game (and mod) recognizes that civs represents cultures, yet gives them the
powers that only unified, highly centralized nations would possess. This issue is handled well with, say, India or Khmer, with the former representing the MANY, MANY kingdoms and principalities that the Indian subcontinent has been home to, and the latter representing the various small civs of the Indochina peninsula. The AI, in charge of these civs, maintains a good semblance of historical realism; despite being "united" in the game, neither really achieve the power that they could have if united in real life, because their power is sufficiently nerfed to begin with. The same generally applies to China, where I see the same ebb and tide of dynastic flow that characterized China in real life.
But to see Germany controlling everything from the border of France to Finland and at the top of the scoreboard, with Italy conquered or vassalized, and able to beat any European nation in a war, is ridiculous. This laughs in the face of history. The Holy Roman Empire was repeatedly brutalized by other countries, not the other way around. Take the 30 Years' War, or, as my history teacher once called it, the gang rape of the HRE by the rest of Europe.
I'm not calling for 100% determinism either- just realism, that's all. A few suggestions:
1) Shrink Germany's spawn area. Giving it all that space is ridiculous.
2) Remove a settler. And a few starting troops.
3) Establish an independent buffer zone between Russia and Germany to represent the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Make it
fairly strong on the defensive side (i.e., lots of longbowmen) to prevent Russia or Germany from conquering it and taking all that juicy land.
As for Italy, I feel that it should either be nerfed considerably, or not spawn until 1861. It would be best for the area to be Independent, then be divied up amongst the nations of Europe until 1861, when it overthrows its foreign oppressors, as in real life.
One last word- I REALLY like this mod- it's all I play now, so don't take my words as being abrasive. They were a few minor suggestions, that's all.
If I may make a request,could you incorporate
Panopticon's modcomp that allows for immigrants to America to bring their religion? I
imagine it wouldn't take all that much coding, although I don't speak Python, so I could be wrong.
This would probably require more coding, but for a future release of your mod, Leoreth, I though this might be cool:
Civilizations in Abundance
Anyway, my usual approach on things like that (and honestly on the stability system in general) is that Rhye knew what he was doing when implementing it, so a rework of the system is unlikely to come from me. The democracy switch bug was severe, of course, but a fix has been found already.
Seriously though, it depends. Researching a tech nobody else knows might give you a better trading position, if the AI is holding back the tech because it wants to keep a monopoly on it ("We don't want to trade this away just yet"), all you can do is wait until its more widespread. The general approach to tech trading should be to research advanced techs yourself and use trading to get those you skipped, like in usual Civ.
