Final Fixes Reborn

[Eyestabber]

I think i saw something like that during one of my earlier runs. Do you have a save of that ? ( what version are you playing by the way, svn or base download ?)

(Answers to the mercenary posts coming up, need to write them ^^)

Base download, not SVN. Enabled modules: BlackDuke, Dural, MoreEvents. Oh, and thank you for the quick reply. Good to see this modder team is alive and kicking!

Here:

 

[Calavente]

i need to look into his lore, my base idea was to 1) allow him to go in the pool 2) allow him to transform mercenary units you hired into regular ones.

well. 1) is the new mechanics for all hippus.
regarding 2), I think it would be a second "Govanon micromanagement thingy".
however having hippus get this ability with a promotion available to a Merc Managers UU would be fun.

I further agree with not letting other sell their units... but I was trying to imagine what would be the benefits of having a "Mercenary Headquarter" in your city.

Maybe the following : "can draft mercenary units" ?
or mercenaries get a reduced maintenance ?
or leashed mercenaries are provided, free of maintenance, in all cities owned at time of the creation of Guild of Nine; with as many xp as the pop of the respective city +4 ?

any other idea ??

 

[BanTingyun]

Black_Imperator: Cool! As a follow-up to your response on tech prereqs, I do think your mentioned solution of making it so a greater number of civs have the tech is sensible. Even setting it to 2 or 3 civs required to have the tech would significantly delay things in a good way, given the way there is often a tech leader in any branch and then many more civs following later.

I also want to voice my agreement with Calavente that multiples would make magic users ungodly expensive, but my disagreement with that being a bad thing. I think mages should be insanely expensive, and archmages should probably take the entire income of a city to support them, it fits thematically (Mages don't hire themselves out for pay of common soldiers, and priests don't go rogue and serve worshippers of competing gods lightly. ), and more importantly:

So much of FFH civ balancing for some of the civs is locking access to certain magic away. What is the value to the Khazad or Mechanos of having a mage, much less an archmage? Or for any civ of having units that can cast permanent enchantments on your soldiers or transform terrain permanently in ways that you otherwise don't have access to (even if you can only afford the maintence cost for a couple dozen turns, the reprucusions of such changes could persist and pay huge returns on investment throughout the game). What about access to the unique spells of a certain religion through top disciple units, many of which are total game changers regarding religion balancing (I'd pay huge gold for a unit with unyielding order, and the spells that are cast once and persist forever are even more worth it). Then there is access to spell spheres thst you havent otherwise invested in but need some use of, freeing up your options elsewhere in terms of mana or training, or types of spells that are hard counters to things you otherwise wouldn't be able to easily face (the mechanos hiring an air mage when facing sidar mist, hiring lugus priests to face undead).

Essentially, if magic using unit costs are going to be balanced against their gamechanging situational potential, they are going to have to be priced well above what they are worth for normal use. And that isn't a bad thing, as if the Khazad want to hire an arch mage and keep him for longer than the 20 turns needed to make a few enchantments, they should have to basically grant him a lordship where he is consuming the economic product of city, because of what he opens up for them. And based on supply and demand, any other civ should have to pay huge costs as well to compete with the situationally valuable uses. Long term hiring of srchmages shouldn't be viable simply to supplement your forces.

Also, even outside of magic, national units should likewise be ungodly expensive. The reason is that, to get a national unit, you generally have to research a tech that isn't useful for much else, investing thousands upon thousands of research into warhorses, just to get the ability to build 4 knights. If you are able to purchase a knight directly, you should pay out the nose from your commerce, because you have saved such an enormous amount of research. And even if you have researched it yourself, then you are still (as Nor'easter points out) circumventing one of the fundamental restrictions of the game. Having an additional knight in your employ for a late-game war isn't unreasonabke to cost around 1/4th the cost of developing warhorses. Hiring national units is thus very different from hiring champions or horse archers, where you can develop the tech and build hordes of the unit.

Anyway, that's why I recomended multiples for magic users and national units (and double multiples for magic using national units). Hiring them circumvents the normal balancing of civ restrictions and the hard choice of investing in the late tier techs of alternate lines, and it should generally only make sense in specific situations for limitied uses, and not as an affordable way to long-term supplement your forces.

 

[scutarii]

Also, common sense dictates - almost everyone can grab a sword but only very few and bright can reach to top status either in magecraft, priesthood or sword/horse mastery. Therefore top tier units services are expensive.

 

[black_imperator]

well. 1) is the new mechanics for all hippus.
regarding 2), I think it would be a second "Govanon micromanagement thingy".
however having hippus get this ability with a promotion available to a Merc Managers UU would be fun.

I further agree with not letting other sell their units... but I was trying to imagine what would be the benefits of having a "Mercenary Headquarter" in your city.

Maybe the following : "can draft mercenary units" ?
or mercenaries get a reduced maintenance ?
or leashed mercenaries are provided, free of maintenance, in all cities owned at time of the creation of Guild of Nine; with as many xp as the pop of the respective city +4 ?

any other idea ??

1) As of now, world unit are blocked from it, to prevent them from popping up in the random pool, i'll have to add a way to write exceptions ^^

2) Maybe a Commander UU ?

As for the rest, yeah Guild of Nine gives reduced maintenance to mercenaries ( and reduced contract costs)

Black_Imperator: Cool! As a follow-up to your response on tech prereqs, I do think your mentioned solution of making it so a greater number of civs have the tech is sensible. Even setting it to 2 or 3 civs required to have the tech would significantly delay things in a good way, given the way there is often a tech leader in any branch and then many more civs following later.

We'll see what works best with balance, it's very easy to change 1 into 2 or 3 in that code ^^

 

[Calavente]

1) As of now, world unit are blocked from it, to prevent them from popping up in the random pool, i'll have to add a way to write exceptions ^^

2) Maybe a Commander UU ?

1) true. But I don't think that it would be a good use of Magnadine as he arrives so late in game.
And IMO it seems strange that the perks of the Hippus Hero is "can be loaned to other civs"; even if that is a way to gain xp without risks (as he can't die for real as a mercenary).
IMO he should have something else to him...

- 1) has a chance to turn any "mercenary unit" around him into a Hippus unit.
- 2) double chance if the mercenary unit is barbarian.
- 3) commander secondary unit_class, get 1 free "promotion": +15%str to units with "mercenary" under his command ;

against 1), I would propose that the spell "loyalty" counters Magnadine effect : it would boost lawI which is rarely useful atm.

2) : commander UU, why not... Or a spell linked to a UB, and that has a "gold" cost ? : 50% of the Unit initial cost ?

3) finaly I agee with scutarii and BanTingyun
-tierIV should be expensive (but normally they SHOULD already be expensive as their cost is expensive).
-High Priests should not arrive naturally in the pool, unless they were "killed in action"
-disciples and Priests with "mercenary promotion" should be banned from spreading the religion: as it would "kill them" or at least "make them settle forever in the village/city... and that is contradictory with being a mercenary.
-Priests and Mages (and high-priests/archmages/druids/lich) should be expensive

for TierIV I have a proposal:
- normal appearance in the pool is very low.
- main source of tierIV appearing in the pool is when such a unit has died in combat (should be rare enough that there wouldn't be too many tierIV units in the pool).

4) other ideas for mercenaries:
- barb-merc promotion should be hidden (the promotion) so that it is not seen and we cannot easily see if the unit is a barb-merc or a HN enlisted unit of a civ.
- mercenary pools is common to all civ, however the "buying pool for 5 turns" is unique to each civ... so it's not a "speed-run" for "the one which buys the new tierIII unit first".

comments ?

 

[BanTingyun]

Calavente: interesting ideas over the past couple of days, a couple of comments:

A) I like the idea of having Magnadine grant a small bonus promotion to mercenaries fighting in the same tile or commanded by him.

B) I do not agree with giving him a chance of turning mercenaries into hippus units. Way too much potential to be overpowered, and Magnadine was already a very powerful, useful hero in combat, this would turn him into an economic war machine. Both detracts from his primary use and would be very difficult to balance, as the mercenary pool is going to have a great many amazing units at this stage. Also, transforms the hippus into a civ that drains from the top units of the mercenary pool, which seems opposite.

3) finaly I agee with scutarii and BanTingyun
-tierIV should be expensive (but normally they SHOULD already be expensive as their cost is expensive).

C) the unit production cost absolutelly does not account for the higher value of national units--that's the whole point with the need to use multiples. Compare the cost of a knight to horse archer, or phalanx to champion, their difference is minor compared to their strength, and you would always choose to build the national units. That's because the real cost of a national unit is investing in a late tier tech costing thousands of commerce, and you can only have 4. The mercenary mechanic bypasses both restrictions, and they are by far the principle source of a national units cost (the production to build them being a comparitivelly monor consideration).

In response to your broader ideas:

D) I love your unhired mercs turning barbarian idea. Makes great sense, and we see that happening throughout history. Great idea!

E) I really don't like the idea of defeated units having a chance to join the mercenary pool (outside of maybe an event that takes place once a game or something like that). It just doesn't make much historical or logical sense for it to be happening. A unit employed by a nation is either conscripts who, on defeat of their unit, would return to the farms and families, or regular soldiers who would probably just return to their nation's service, or even the towns and villages they came from, or disperse to find new lives. Why would seeing almost all of their compatriots fall in battle around them suddenly inspire them to abandon their homes and take up the life of sellswords halfway accross the world, and also in their defeated state allow them to suddenly replenish numbers and compete as an organized mercenary company? And how are they ending up an organized and united force at all after being crushed in battle (and if organized, their commanders, who have position with their nation, would still be in charge and would have strong incentives not to do this).

However, the following would make sense: if a unit deserts for lack of payment, then it has a high chance of going mercenary, and if a civ is wiped out by taking their last city, then the remaining units have a high chance to go mercenary.

But being defeated in battle under civ iv mechanics (which means total unit destruction, not just having a disapointing campaign) isn't going to leave a unit in the kind of state where they would be capable of or want to turn mercenary. Almost all your compatriots dead or captured, the few survivors fleeing in every direction and wanting to return home with their spirits crushed by the defeat, no organization or commanders left...nope, not going to turn into a mercenary band.

 

[black_imperator]

1) true. But I don't think that it would be a good use of Magnadine as he arrives so late in game.
And IMO it seems strange that the perks of the Hippus Hero is "can be loaned to other civs"; even if that is a way to gain xp without risks (as he can't die for real as a mercenary).
IMO he should have something else to him...

- 1) has a chance to turn any "mercenary unit" around him into a Hippus unit.
- 2) double chance if the mercenary unit is barbarian.
- 3) commander secondary unit_class, get 1 free "promotion": +15%str to units with "mercenary" under his command ;

against 1), I would propose that the spell "loyalty" counters Magnadine effect : it would boost lawI which is rarely useful atm.

3 i like, maybe an aura instead of a commander bonus, i don't know, need to see the balance of it

2) : commander UU, why not... Or a spell linked to a UB, and that has a "gold" cost ? : 50% of the Unit initial cost ?

possible, yeah

3) finaly I agee with scutarii and BanTingyun
-tierIV should be expensive (but normally they SHOULD already be expensive as their cost is expensive).
-High Priests should not arrive naturally in the pool, unless they were "killed in action"
-disciples and Priests with "mercenary promotion" should be banned from spreading the religion: as it would "kill them" or at least "make them settle forever in the village/city... and that is contradictory with being a mercenary.
-Priests and Mages (and high-priests/archmages/druids/lich) should be expensive

for TierIV I have a proposal:
- normal appearance in the pool is very low.
- main source of tierIV appearing in the pool is when such a unit has died in combat (should be rare enough that there wouldn't be too many tierIV units in the pool).

agreed on the religion thing, the rest will be balanced

4) other ideas for mercenaries:
- barb-merc promotion should be hidden (the promotion) so that it is not seen and we cannot easily see if the unit is a barb-merc or a HN enlisted unit of a civ.

agreed

- mercenary pools is common to all civ, however the "buying pool for 5 turns" is unique to each civ... so it's not a "speed-run" for "the one which buys the new tierIII unit first".

comments ?

that ain't really doable in the current system, though i could partly regenerate the pool if it gets emptied for example.

Calavente: interesting ideas over the past couple of days, a couple of comments:

A) I like the idea of having Magnadine grant a small bonus promotion to mercenaries fighting in the same tile or commanded by him.

me too

B) I do not agree with giving him a chance of turning mercenaries into hippus units. Way too much potential to be overpowered, and Magnadine was already a very powerful, useful hero in combat, this would turn him into an economic war machine. Both detracts from his primary use and would be very difficult to balance, as the mercenary pool is going to have a great many amazing units at this stage. Also, transforms the hippus into a civ that drains from the top units of the mercenary pool, which seems opposite.

agreed

C) the unit production cost absolutelly does not account for the higher value of national units--that's the whole point with the need to use multiples. Compare the cost of a knight to horse archer, or phalanx to champion, their difference is minor compared to their strength, and you would always choose to build the national units. That's because the real cost of a national unit is investing in a late tier tech costing thousands of commerce, and you can only have 4. The mercenary mechanic bypasses both restrictions, and they are by far the principle source of a national units cost (the production to build them being a comparitivelly monor consideration).

In response to your broader ideas:

D) I love your unhired mercs turning barbarian idea. Makes great sense, and we see that happening throughout history. Great idea!

E) I really don't like the idea of defeated units having a chance to join the mercenary pool (outside of maybe an event that takes place once a game or something like that). It just doesn't make much historical or logical sense for it to be happening. A unit employed by a nation is either conscripts who, on defeat of their unit, would return to the farms and families, or regular soldiers who would probably just return to their nation's service, or even the towns and villages they came from, or disperse to find new lives. Why would seeing almost all of their compatriots fall in battle around them suddenly inspire them to abandon their homes and take up the life of sellswords halfway accross the world, and also in their defeated state allow them to suddenly replenish numbers and compete as an organized mercenary company? And how are they ending up an organized and united force at all after being crushed in battle (and if organized, their commanders, who have position with their nation, would still be in charge and would have strong incentives not to do this).

However, the following would make sense: if a unit deserts for lack of payment, then it has a high chance of going mercenary, and if a civ is wiped out by taking their last city, then the remaining units have a high chance to go mercenary.

But being defeated in battle under civ iv mechanics (which means total unit destruction, not just having a disapointing campaign) isn't going to leave a unit in the kind of state where they would be capable of or want to turn mercenary. Almost all your compatriots dead or captured, the few survivors fleeing in every direction and wanting to return home with their spirits crushed by the defeat, no organization or commanders left...nope, not going to turn into a mercenary band.

i would say that very occasionally it can happen, but the chance should be very low.

Anyway, i'm almost done with testing the basics ( random pool with hiring and firing, no hippus specific but the maintenance bonus yet), hopefully it should come this week end. I'll then take a little break from it to do some of the bugfixings that were reported in the last weeks and a few things on emergent leaders ( need to clear my head of that code for a bit).

 

[BanTingyun]

Cool! I'll look forward to testing the new system. Thanks for all your work in creating this fun new mechanic.

Can I ask one question regarding clarification on the development schedule you posted? Is the scion decoupling from normal fallow trait health immunity coding something that might happen in the upcoming bug fixing phase you mention, or more something that probably won't happen until at least a couple of months later? I normally would never ask a modder about release schedules (I recognize how annoying it can be), but my wife is traveling to visit her parents as soon as she gets out of school for spring break in a little over a month, so I'm planning out my video game plans for bachelor's week. Anyway, totally understand if you just don't know, or if things later change, but I thought I'd ask in case you did have a plan.

Anyway, I'm planning on reliving old treasured strategy game memories, including tackling all my favorite Civ 2 scenarios once more (did anyone else ever play Hurin's dagor bragollach scenario? (http://dor-lomin.com/archive/dagor/) or Harlan Thompson's LOTR?) I never felt that Civ 4 scenarios quite matched their best Civ 2 counterparts, although the mods (and modmodmodmods) are much better in Civ 4 obviously.

 

[Calavente]

C
E) I really don't like the idea of defeated units having a chance to join the mercenary pool (outside of maybe an event that takes place once a game or something like that). It just doesn't make much historical or logical sense for it to be happening. A unit employed by a nation is either conscripts who, on defeat of their unit, would return to the farms and families, or regular soldiers who would probably just return to their nation's service, or even the towns and villages they came from, or disperse to find new lives. Why would seeing almost all of their compatriots fall in battle around them suddenly inspire them to abandon their homes and take up the life of sellswords halfway accross the world, and also in their defeated state allow them to suddenly replenish numbers and compete as an organized mercenary company? And how are they ending up an organized and united force at all after being crushed in battle (and if organized, their commanders, who have position with their nation, would still be in charge and would have strong incentives not to do this).

technically this happen a lot in history.
the French Foreign Legion, which is a kind of Mercenary Unit, but always bought by France, was often filled with ex-military of fallen regimes.... SA (German non-SS WW2 soldiers), Stazi...etc
and IIRC, often, defeated armies could become mercenaries when they were fighting in far-off countries... due to lack of possibility to communicate with their Motherland, and difficulty to go back.
and all those "small defeated units fleeing everywhere" often amounted to 50%+ of the original army size.. and they still needed to eat.
And mercenary companies are often built upon defeated soldiers joining a new war-leaders.

but most of all... it is fun mechanics ... that 2-5% of defeated units can appear on the merc pool: disgruntled units that fought and fought and fought for their commanders... and were put in a strategic situation clearly needing their sacrifice
it would allow for a bit of determinisme in the merc pool, and for promoted units.

 

[black_imperator]

Cool! I'll look forward to testing the new system. Thanks for all your work in creating this fun new mechanic.

Can I ask one question regarding clarification on the development schedule you posted? Is the scion decoupling from normal fallow trait health immunity coding something that might happen in the upcoming bug fixing phase you mention, or more something that probably won't happen until at least a couple of months later? I normally would never ask a modder about release schedules (I recognize how annoying it can be), but my wife is traveling to visit her parents as soon as she gets out of school for spring break in a little over a month, so I'm planning out my video game plans for bachelor's week. Anyway, totally understand if you just don't know, or if things later change, but I thought I'd ask in case you did have a plan.

No plan yet, but it's very possible that i get to it.

 

[BanTingyun]

Calavente: I'm going to respond to your post, because it is a very well thought out thing you wrote and it deserves a response, but I think we are just having some off-topic debating fun, as Black_Imperator is putting the mechanic in. So I'm no longer disagreeing with you in trying to argue against it, rather I'm just always up for some off-topic debating fun.

technically this happen a lot in history.
the French Foreign Legion, which is a kind of Mercenary Unit, but always bought by France, was often filled with ex-military of fallen regimes.... SA (German non-SS WW2 soldiers), Stazi...etc

"Military of fallen regimes" would fit my suggestion of if a civ gets defeated, letting their leftover units become merc, not individual defeated units

and IIRC, often, defeated armies could become mercenaries when they were fighting in far-off countries... due to lack of possibility to communicate with their Motherland, and difficulty to go back.

If you can transform your "IIRC" into a "here are a couple of examples" I would be more convinced. I looked up several articles on historical mercenaries, and didn't find a single mention of any major mercenary group originating this way. I know of tons of such groups that turned into breakaway warlords themselves, but that is much different.

Also, remember defeated army does not equal defeated unit in civ mechanics. A defeated army in civ mechanics might be you lose 3 out of 4 units, with 1 wounded one retreating, maintaining some unit integrity and command structure.

Actually, the best way to model your point here would be to add a chance for any unit that is disbanded to turn into a mercenary. That would cover both the situation you describe (units too far away, home civ abandons them), and the many instances that nations had extreme trouble with their units becoming troublesome after choosing to disband after a long war (see, Rome) and going bandit or hiring out to whoever will pay them. So I would agree that a similar mechanic for disbanded units (in addition to the lack of payment and civ defeated instances mentioned earlier) would have a strong basis.

and all those "small defeated units fleeing everywhere" often amounted to 50%+ of the original army size.. and they still needed to eat.

The problem is the lack of unit integrity. This is a problem in the binary way civ 4 represents unit combat--if a unit survives combat at 3% life, then it is allowed to completely replenish itself just by resting, which assumes that all 97% of remaining unit manpower had fled and could be recovered, had light wounds, or is easily replaced by conscripts (very odd for higher level units). But if a unit is drive to 0%, then the model is the entirety of the manpower was severely wounded or driven off in an unrecoverable way. It's not actually a terrible system, if a bit extreme in its averaging, but it rests on the assumption that breaking the unit down to 0% really breaks it. So in that context, assuming no nation could ever rally the command structure of a unit back, even though the nation probably has a large force nearby with ready commanders and the unit has preexisting loyalties, but instead a new command structure could magically appear and convince the unit to disperse just far enough to escape the rest of the nation's military but then come back together into a coherent unit and then abandon their families and home and travel halfway across the world...

but most of all... it is fun mechanics ... that 2-5% of defeated units can appear on the merc pool

If set at 2-5% I would disagree. I play with aggressive AI (as I imagine most who don't like continuous peace do) on deity where the AI builds loads of units, and gets them killed constantly. I also think a well designed random merc pool will provide just as much fun--remember, this is an invisible mechanic that occurs, from the player's perspective the only thing that matters is the composition of the merc pool, not how it got there, so there really isn't anything fun or not fun about the mechanic, it's just a question of what builds the most interesting merc pool. But I'm just speculating--I really have no idea how this plays out, and whatever Black_Imperator does set the chances to, I'll just provide feedback based on how it in practice influences the merc pool, and it's completely possible my speculation is way off.

Anyway, I'm happy to keep debating back and forth as long as you like, it's an interesting discussion.

EDIT: But also feel free not to respond. The mechanic is in, and you have made great points--and not everyone has my love for endless off-topic historical debate.

 

[BanTingyun]

No plan yet, but it's very possible that i get to it.

Cool, thanks for the info! And either way, thanks again for improving this mod so much. Such a wonderful experience playing again--every game feels like a high-fantasy epic novel.

 

[Calavente]

you are right about the debate thing

on one hand I'm thinking that you are right ; units in civ are not armies...blabla.
one the other hand, by the same scale, mercenaries units in FFH are not "major mercenary groups". they are small warbands, or war-units, selling their wares to the local baron ...etc

in the middle ages, having defeated knights becoming "wandering knights", selling their might was not rare at all. Same for soldiers.

But on the side of "major mercenary bands" you are right.
But then, in FFH, those major mercenary bands is..; the Hippus
and in FFH, being fantasy, there exists the concept of "mercenary guild" which did not really exist in the real world.

anyway, you are right, it would be invisible to the player.

maybe it could be used only for defeated units of level above 5 ?

 

[BanTingyun]

Calavente: interesting points! And you make a great point that a lot of this depends on the issue of how big a unit really is conceptualized to be in the fall from heaven world (a scale that is very much left up to everyone's own imagination, and we probably all have our own headcannons on this).

Anyway, I really enjoyed the discussion, and I look forward to more interesting conversations in the future!

 

[riuminkd]

So, civlopedia trouble:
(Look at screenshots)
How can it be fixed?

 

[black_imperator]

ok, i think i know your issue, it's probably a low resolution thing, ronkhar updated the pedia to use a larger res, if you want a low res pedia, follow these instructions :

For players with low-resolution screens (width<~1300): By default, I upgraded the civilopedia for high-res screens. If you prefer the original pedia, just extract ...\Ashes of Erebus\Assets\pythonScreens - Old Pedia Layout (1024x768).7z to ...\Ashes of Erebus\Assets\python

 

[Erikulum]

Played some AoE after being disappointed by a civ 5 fantasy mod. Probably won't play again, civ 4 have some unappealing mechanics now that I've played the new one.

First, Ashe of Erebus need a custom main menu background!

idea for Reorx level 3 - spawn 3 adjacent mithril just outside your city radius some turn after the mithril tech discovery

idea for scout (and maybe hunter): The scouts in AoE always die quickly, making them invisible to animal would probably help a lot

The only "problem" I had was the GoblinWaste1 event spawning the group on turn 10 next to my city, killed my warrior, Game Over. As a quick fix I removed 2 goblins from doGoblinWaste1() in MoreEvents.py and reduced Muris Lord <iCombatDefense> to 4 in MoreEvents_CIV4UnitInfos.xml. This event shouldn't happen in the early game

 

[BanTingyun]

Civ IV is the pinnacle of the series in my book (sort of like how Skyrim can't really compete with Morrowind, and Dragon Age can't compete with Baldur's Gate).

Hmm, scouts getting eaten by giant spiders and mauled by bears has consistently been an element of the FFH charm. It's a DnD world out there, which means it should be dangerous.

Also, from a game mechanics perspective, if a scout grabs a goodie hut, or pops a positive from a graveyard or something, it generally pays back its investment cost with a healthy return, and in my experience I have a solid chance of getting one of these results before death, with a pretty equal chance of getting 0 or at least 2 before death. Building a scout feels right at the spot where it is a real decision between it and other options, a decision made based on starting tech, terrain, and desire for coty growth, and making the world safer for them would probably make it a dominant strategy to build 1 or 2 extra in the beginning, which would be a step back in game balance.

In base civ iv the world was safer, but there was a much lower density of rewarding targets (it was missing all the explorables). Seems like the same balance was achieved here, just with a more dangerous and fitting world.

 

[riuminkd]

ok, i think i know your issue, it's probably a low resolution thing, ronkhar updated the pedia to use a larger res, if you want a low res pedia, follow these instructions :

Thanks. I didn't find this archive, but i get the idea. I replaced my Assets\python\Screens with their versions from Rise from Erebus. Filter is broken, but it's okay.