Hi,
I recently decided to play a new game with your latest patch. I choose to play with Yi Ti for two reasons: first, I wanted to check out the new Eastessosi Civ since it is specific to this mod, and second, I wanted to see how the situation in Westeros develops with minimal input from the player.
On that second point, and since I used to come to this thread and complain about how the Others are too strong, I am now very happy to report that this is no longer the case. I have played over 350 turns so far and the Others are still safely contained behind the wall. It even took them almost 300 turns before they could finish off the wildlings. Also, I noticed that the westerosi factions are able to lauch invasions beyond the wall, and the Tyrells even captured one city in the far north and held it for a few turns. So in conclusion, after your latest patch all westerosi factions are now viable as player controlled civs, even in the hands of a not so skilled player. (I have also thought some more about the previous version, and I think some westerosi factions might have been able to win anyway, if controlled by a very skilled player. It's just that I don not personally have the skill required to test that theory. But this means that patches .02 and .03 act almost like an extra layer of "difficulty levels" in regards to eachoter).
Anyway, the Others are no longer overpowered. I am almost tempted to say that they could be too weak at the moment, but I fear such a conclusion may be too hasty, as I do not have enough data to make that judgement at the moment, since I haven't even finished the game yet.
As for the Eastessosi, I foud them to be a very intersting and original faction. (I was expecting them to be a copy of the Dao from Orbis, but it turned out to not be the case). Playing with Yi Ti turned out to be quite fun, and I think it is a good choice for new players who want to test out the scenario. My only "complaint" is that it is almost too easy to play with them, as they have a very strong position. (But the reason it has gotten too easy is mostly because I underestimated the strength of my position and started the game on a too low difficulty level). I probably won't finish the game, as I am allready on track to winning a tower of mastery victory (having raw mana nodes nearby definitely helps) and the only thing left to do is to just wait for the turns to pass. None of the AI factions is strong enough to pose a threat. But as I said, that is not a fault of the scenario design, I will just select a higher difficulty for my next playthrough.
What IS however unbalanced is the situation around the barbarian city of K'Dath, and the five forts. This is because the five forts will fall in the first turn of the game, no matter what. The lich in K'Dath will just summon elementals and overrun the forts, and there is nothing that can be done about this, even on the lowest difficulty level. The garisson of the five forts can not be reinforced in time, nor can it be evacuated, since they are immobile units. Now, this is just a minor problem for the player, as the barbarins in K'Dath are not able to pose a threat in the long term, so loosing the five forts is just a minor inconvenience for the Yi Ti player. So I don't think this is a serious issue, I only bring this up because I find this design choice a bit puzzling. What is the point of the five forts if there is no possibility for the player to hold the line there, and no incentive for trying to recover them? One suggestion I could make is to give K'Dath to the Others. This would give them a foothold in Essos, and allow them to threaten essos based civs, if they are able to break out of that position in the late game. It will also help as it is the AV holy city, and the Others already have the AV religion. In exchange for that you could weaken the starting garisson of K'Dath, or at least take away the summoning spells from the Lich so it can no longer spam elementals and rush the five forts at the start of the game. So in this way it becomes possible but also necessary for the Yi Ti player to try and hold the line at the five forts, to contain the threat from beyond them.
Another small suggestion that I have, on a similar note, is to try to change the wildling faction a bit so they become more involved in the game. Right now they can not breach the wall on their own, and they can not stop the others either, so they will just slowly be eliminated. This should not change because it is accurate to the lore. However, I think that maybe you could give them an unique "raider" unit that could pass through impassable terrain (like the Eastessosi Medic can). This way the wildlihngs could be able to strike at targets south of the wall, and maybe even try to seize some weakly defended city, without having to seize Castle Black first (since that is impossible). This would also match the lore of the books to some extent.
Two other minor complaints are about the graphics: First is that the unit graphics for paladins and royal guards are now the same, which I find a bit confusing, and I also don't know what was wrong with the old royal guard unit model. Second is that on the resource map you seem to have switched the graphics for gunpowder and mithril.
But everything above is just minor nitpicking. I want to stress once again that overall I like the scenario and all the little details you put into it, and I think the nev version may be even better, since the balance issues from older versions seem to be mostly solved.
Best regards and thank you for your work!
