I quite like the look of your changes. A few comments:
Encampment can still be useful by making its buildings provide extra production towards units (I do this with my Better City Specializations mod), plus don't forget the experience bonus units trained in an Encampment receive.
I don't believe the Encampment itself provides xp bonuses. You have to invest *even more* production into a Barracks/Stable, and usually it is better to just pump out more units until later in the game when the Barracks/Stable is much cheaper than a unit.
As for it providing extra production towards units, I suppose that is an option. City-states already give this bonus and I still don't often think an Encampment is worth it (unless playing multiplayer, in which case a walled Encampment on a hill is often critical just for defense, but that's still only *one* Encampment).
I don't really want to change how resources work, but if you were to do so I recommend attaching a weakened (10%) culture version of the Basilikoi Paides to Encampments.
All good points. Thank you for taking the time to read my rant, much appreciated
- Changing all the tool tips will be a pain, maybe this can be automated through sql in some way? I am worried about potential conflicts with other mods too, not sure how to work around this...
I don't know if sql will let you do a find and replace on individual words inside the actual content. I'm also not sure exactly how load order works, but you should be able to cover most mods if you figure out a way to automate.
- The problem with ranged for slinger/archer/xbow is that siege units and some ships are also described as ranged. If I get a +5 vs ranged units, does that also apply to catapults? It's confusing.
Fair enough. I would say to call them "Bombardment" class, but that might confuse people with the "Bombard Strength" Siege units have. I suppose you could change Bombard Strength to Siege strength, but then you still enter people-confused-by-not-vanilla again. "Shooter" class? "Projectile" class? "Rear" class?
- The late game should favour the attacker more, because corps and armies increase unit strengths but not cities and also enable the beligerous party to pump more production into the front line. There's also the benefit of accumulated promotions that a warmonger will have had. What other boosts did you have in mind?
I'm not necessarily talking about people who have warred all game. Nor am I talking about whether or not the attacker can have an advantage over the defender if they really want to invest everything into it. I'm talking about whether the advantage is easy enough to get that its worth warring at all late-game. The rewards are simply not there (unless you're going for Domination).
Perhaps I'm wording this poorly. War in Civ is the only mechanic in which two players successfully competing puts them both behind everyone else. All race mechanics make one player stronger and the other weaker, but some of the race mechanics (like Great People, or settling land) still put the runner-up ahead of everyone who didn't try (usually). War is not like this. If you just barely win a war, you end up behind every other player except the one you defeated. You have to crush a war to end up with a net gain. This means attackers want to build overwhelmingly huge armies and defenders want to build barely enough to not lose the war (so they fall behind as little as possible).
For defenders to be able to hold out without wasting as much resources as attackers, they must have a bonus to defending. In Civ, we have extra healing in home territory, the ability to build forts and encampments and city bombardment, the ability to place our cities in hard to reach places, and combat boosts (defense advantage, support bonuses).
For attackers to be willing to build up a significantly stronger force and risk falling behind, the rewards must be either easy to obtain or tremendous. In Civ6 we have good pillage yields for when your army is strong enough to raid but not strong enough to conquer, and of course you can conquer a civ and gain its lands even if they aren't optimized in the way you would want them.
However, wars costs/benefits change throughout the game. Diplomatic penalties and war weariness discourage attacks late game, pillage yields become insignificant, conquering doesn't give you much time to use the lands, and victory by other means becomes possible. These all add up to make attacking lategame unthinkable except for Domination.
So yes, for a Domination player, lategame war is still worthwhile. They have probably been warring all game and have promotions, and they are clearly willing to risk everything to pump out some more units. Corps and Armies allow them to put even more production onto the front lines.
I'm not saying everyone should have a reason to go to war, nor am I saying that the costs/benefits should change very much from how they are in vanilla. It is interesting to have both costs and benefits shift throughout the game. But I do think that the ratio of the two overall has to stay even, so that sometimes enough of the benefits line up and sometimes all of the costs line up, and it changes your decision. Currently the only way the benefits outweigh the costs is if you are literally winning the game.
I would prefer in this case to lower the costs of war to match rather than to increase the benefits (the only one we can really buff is pillage yields). The costs are opportunity cost of not going for some other victory (should stay, since if it is lowered enough then everyone will always war lategame; victory is the most important goal), diplomatic penalties and war weariness (should stay, since it contrasts with early game), and then the cost of the actual army itself in turns spent moving/attacking/building. If you lower build costs, it benefits attackers and defenders. If you increase moves, that honestly might do more for defenders because they won't have carpets of doom blocking the movement.
But because we have units that are more often used to attack and others that are more often used to defend, we can buff attackers and leave defenders alone! Buff the units that need resources (Tanks/Bombers/Helicopters/Artillery) and are mainly good for attacking, and also give the defenders and option that works decently (buff the Bazooka. Can you make it a ranged unit that also gets the anti-cavalry bonus?).
Ok, sorry for the longwinded explanation.
- Buffing late game heavy cavalry is difficult. I don't want a repeat of the current situation where (in the classical era) horsemen are the best even if they are (nominally) countered by spearman. As it stands, the only counter to modern armor is a bazooka. The bazooka has a mediocre +7 str bonus, but does this at the cost of 2 moves and being (literally) the weakest unit in the game. A semi competent player could easily manage to avoid getting his modern armor hit by bazookas. I would like to make tanks/modern armour stronger, but they need an extra weakness to compensate. I'm completely open to suggestions
Spearmen only work on defense, which honestly I'm fine with. Horsemen should rule the open terrain. Making them have more upkeep and production cost will help.
I suggested above making the Bazooka a ranged unit with anti-cavalry bonuses. If this make the Bazooka have too much of a weakness then don't bother. Perhaps the counter to Modern Armor can be in the skies? We have fighters and bombers, but I don't know if anybody builds either because they require an Aerodrome. I made fighters not require an Aerodrome in my mod so they can be used on defense without much investment. Maybe let fighters take down Modern Armor, but that lets attackers use bombers so the defender has to choose?
Changes to how resources work has been done with a few mods already. Apparently it's had a marked improvement on the AI as a side effect. Not too sure how it works/is balanced, but perhaps it's best left as a separate mod component.
Since the AI are allowed to upgrade their units even if they don't grab the resource, it helps them a lot. Is there some way to allow upgrades without the resource (but take a huge penalty to strength) but still keep building to needing resources (or Encampments)?
One new points: The musket stands out as being fairly unbeatable. There is no other unit in it's era that can take it on. It eats pikemen for breakfast and can shrug off xbows without flinching. Knights are the closest competitors, but fighting at -8 hurts. How about moving cavalry back one era to the Renaissance with a strength of 50 and keeping 5 moves? Then at least a player without niter can survive until field cannons/fusiliers even things out a little. I also like the idea a big lull in cavalry units until tanks come bursting onto the stage, and it means that both the renaissance and the industrial era have 3 new land units each.
I like this idea, but keep in mind the specific techs these unlock at. Muskets always seem to come late for me, but it may be due to the way Niter is placed on the tree too. Honestly, I often consider rushing Cavalry just because I already know where the Horses are anyway, and currently there's no Anti-Cavalry at that time.
As for it moving 3 unlocks to Renaissance and having only 2 at Industrial, that seems weird to me. I think Moar Units adds a Rifleman in Industrial so I won't notice (and a Lancer in Renaissance I think, doing what you're trying to do here).
Perhaps what you could do instead of this change is to make the Explorer (recon, unlocks in Renaissance I think) more powerful or rework the Recon promotions to enable it to be a stopgap against Muskets?