* I also never got to see a nuclear meltdown. Just what exactly do those do?
Honestly, I do not know. That's from Orbis... I do know the odds are very low. Should be about the same as a mine discovering a metal. Shows how long it's been since I've played plain ol' Civ4. I think it's a BtS event for when you have a nuclear power plant. I'll check/post in the Orbis forum, it's definitely something that should be in the civilopedia. And that reminds me, I discovered four resources in my game. As a baseline comparison, the most I've ever found until this game was two ... and that happened once. Most games I find zero, and I'm lucky if I find one. That's even with lots of earth mana. I guess having over ten mana types that give you additional chances to find new resources might do that. Maybe that needs to be reduced?
* Sometimes I would create a unit and it would mutate. These mutations are almost always good. I only gotten enervated twice). Behold my strong, light, cannibalizing, blitzing witchhunter (see screenshot.) This is by far the best mutation I have ever received. It was so good I named the unit.
Did you have Chaos mana? Valki please! I checked to make sure I didn't have anything that might mutate. You can check the screenshot if you don't believe I didn't have chaos mana. Looking back it happened three times. Apart from Lazarus my uber Witch Hunter I also got two mutated musketmen, who apart from their enervated promotion had quite good mutations as well. Hmm... would be kinda cool if Power Plants could mutate units at maybe 1/10th the rate that Chaos mana does.
* Remove the mana from the palace. I agree with VK in that it doesn't make sense. In fact, Mechanos shouldn't be able to use any mana at all. The palace should prevent that (much like how Overcouncil bans some mana.) There are wonders that can be built and events that can happen that don't make sense for a civ that disdains magic. Perhaps they should be given unique resources they can trade to other civs. Wristwatches
and Stimutacs
or something.
Not sure if I can prevent mana in cities, without making a UU for EVERY building that provides Mana... One thing that happened in nearly all of the games I started was I got the event that would let me create a +Fire affinity staff item if I had enchantment mana. I was kinda hoping that Xienwolf would step in here and say "Oh ho! Yes you can!" In compromise I was suggesting that the Mechanos palace could have built in multiple resources that could be used to trade. Perhaps it's more trouble than it's worth.
...
* Howitzers need a damage cap like all siege weapons. They are tough enough as is with an additional move and blitz. Once I got them, with all the refined mana I had, everything died to their attack and the units hit by collateral damage were at death's door. I brought a howitzer to Combat V Acheron's gate ... 99.9% chance of killing him. I've never even seen odds like that vs. the big bad dragon.
I like them able to directly kill... I might take away all their collateral, and without the city attack they shouldn't be quite as fierce. I didn't notice that cannons also have the ability to directly kill, so I'm content leaving that in so long as their other issues are addressed.
...
* Musketmen are incredibly strong. Not only are they tougher than the standard arquebusiers, they can use mithril weapons! Once I had hold of mithril, with the bloodglass master equipment, I was churning out 16 str units. Not even national units. Gunpowder units that ignore building defenses. I understand that this requires two endline techs and two rare resources (one of which can be gained with a wonder) to achieve, so it is something that has to be worked for. But they are, and logically so, the toughest end game units on Erebus. Perhaps too tough.
Mithril is a magical metal, so I think I might block their UU's from it entirely. I think they're strong enough without it... I agree. Bloodglass and Flamethrowers is enough of a reason to tech mithril anyway.
* Witch Hunters are strong, I like them. But I think their should be a little more tech involved. Make them require Priesthood as well. With way of the wicked they can start with scourge. With way of the wise they can start with undead slaying.
Agreed. The tech requirement was from Orbis, and doesn't quite match. Heh, don't think I ever got them in my Orbis games. After thinking about it, I think Way of the Wise/Wicked should allow for Mechanos civ-specific master promotions for recon units. Scourge and Undead Slaying promotions for a relatively cheap fee.
* I really don't like having useless tech trees. Mechanos doesn't need either the arcane OR the disciple trees, which is a very powerful advantage. Techpriests I think start way too early at philosophy. Considering how powerful they are, I would even move them to fanaticism. Some additional bonuses could be given to Mechanos if they work these trees. Like perhaps they can't work pre-set mana nodes unless they researched the tech first. And maybe the machine spirit promotion isn't available until sorcery.
That's.... An excellent idea. I've been trying to figure out how to make the magic tree useful... Didn't want to block it entirely. And I think I'll move Techpriests like you suggested... definitely powerful units. What irked me was Mechanos got both machine spirit (which is really nice) and Vitalize (which is ... uh, a T3 nature spell) with Philosophy. Both of these have to be delayed. The more I think about it, vitalize might have to be somewhere in the useless part of a tech tree, like Commune with Nature. Machine Spirit could then be part of Alteration (which, conveniently, is what Great Sages can lightbulb.)
* I don't like Steamworks this late. By the time you get alchemy you already have a very large empire. My Steamworks started giving me 40 a turn! But by the time I had alchemy most of the hard work was done and I quickly ran out of techs. This should be put much earlier so you have a choice to wait for more per turn or to start it now where it will have more of an impact.
Hmm... I think I'll allow it from Construction. What do you think of the Power Plants? Too late? As is, Mechanos has a ludicrously good synergy with the Guild of Hammers. New cities have a free factory, which lets them turn a citizen into an engineer with +1
. Four hammers is more than you'll get off of almost any plot, so take it. Use it to build a power plant. Once done you get a free (four hammer) engineer plus another +50%. And power plants don't take long to build. 180 is not enough, I'd double that. 400 for a power plant. Yes it was a pain getting them late, but once I did production became irrelevant. +50% is equivalent to God King in any city it's built. I definitely think power plants should come later.
instead of +2
a turn! But by the time I had alchemy most of the hard work was done and I quickly ran out of techs. This should be put much earlier so you have a choice to wait for more 
Fire
in all cities if you have the gall to research Divine Essence as a Mechanos when there are future techs to be had! A hefty price to pay for Blood of the Phoenix. Oh yeah, that reminds me. There should probably be a penalty for completing rituals too. Civ-wide anarchy for some variable amount of turns. Your people will not be happy if you say one thing and do another. Of course I'm sure the AI will cripple themselves with this.
Gonna go back to the initial promotions, and fix them up to be valid trade-offs rather than entirely good. All the Shot promotions should be like that.
