1. Stadiums: You have no idea how much the name "Colosseum" bugged me. Now you have the option of introducing The Colosseum as a World Wonder in later versions.
That's the plan
2. Towns: Towns lost a lot of power when you removed the Free Speech civic and its +2c. (The new Democracy only compensates for the old Printing Press + Universal Suffrage.) In fact, I played at least two no-cottage games in 0.9.2 with no problems. The +1c with railroads feels like just the right fix.
That was Howard Mahler's idea and it was indeed an excellent one.
3. Resources: I like the idea of resources giving health and happiness benefits only with the right buildings but I'll need to test how it works in practice. I expect you'll need a few more tweaks to get this right. Still, it's a good start.
Yeah I'll definitely need to be tweaking this for a bit, it's quite a substantial change. Opens up a lot of possibilities though. Let me know how it works for you in your games.
Overall, I think I'll need a day or two to absorb all the changes before posting my feedback on the leader traits. I've got most of my ideas down but the new buildings in particular open up some new possibilities.
Looking forward to it. I should mention too that I'm tempted to add an 18th (and final) trait: Traditional. I don't have anything definite for it yet, more just a rough concept, but this would fill a gap I feel exists in the current selection and allow me to add a few more leaders at a later date. I'd welcome your thoughts and ideas on how that might fit in.
Free Religion: I think I've found a bug: as of 0.9.2, Free Religion didn't force you into "No State Religion." ...
That's odd, I can't imagine what I may have done to cause that. I thought I was using the BTS mechanic intact. As you say it's not necessarily a bad thing, but at some point I'll see if I can figure out what's going on there and make a decision.
The Salon: The UB changes you made look good. I would only add that the French Salon never made much sense as an Observatory-replacement. I would make it a News Press-replacement. (The Cinema and Civic Square are other options but I think the News Press works best.)
I agree about the Salon, I just never could figure out what to change it to. I have a rough concept in mind for a new building, the Studio, which might be a good choice for the Salon to replace. If that doesn't come to fruition though I agree that the News Press is probably the best alternative.
Meanwhile, the Terrace is now insanely overpowered as a Granary-replacement with 50% food saved and +2 culture. This was probably an oversight; I would return it to 25% food saved.
Ah damn, that was indeed an oversight.
Natural Resources: Now that you have a Tannery and Distillery, it might be time to rename Wine to Grapes and Fur to Beaver. It would fit with Ivory to Elephants.
I felt that Elephant was the more appropriate name since there are far more actual and implied uses in game for actual Elephants (mounts, labour, etc) and Ivory was merely one such use. It does sound a bit odd having Elephants at a Market but not as bad as soldiers riding Ivory hehe.
Following that reasoning I decided that to stick with Wine instead of Grapes as the main use for Wine is at the Tavern. On the other hand if I ever added Barley/Beer/Brewery that distinction is a bit trickier.
Furs I prefer to leave as-is primarily for diversity reasons. Beavers are just one of many smallish animals that humankind have hunted for their pelts. There's no broader animal term that I can think of; 'rodents' just sounds weird and even then isn't encompassing enough. 'Deer', by comparison, is a much broader term and it's not hard to think of the resource as also representing Reindeer, Elk, Moose and such.
Slightly off-topic, I'd love to add Bison, Yaks and Llamas but I've never been able to find suitable graphics.
Nasser: I'm a big fan of introducing new civilizations and new leaders, but Nasser of Arabia struck me as strange. ...
Egypt in HR is really ancient Egypt as if it was never conquered by the Greeks, Romans and eventually the Arabs. Cairo isn't even in the Egyptian citylist (which uses all ancient Egyptian names) but will be on the Arabian citylist when I eventually get around to reworking it. Because of this distinction I felt Nasser fit in much better with Arabia. I chose Nasser over any other modern Arab leader because the available art was of excellent quality but also because he makes for an interesting AI personality.
A big thumbs up, Xyth: there aren't many great mods for Mac users like me. I'd be glad to give you some feedback, especially about balancing civics and leader traits, which you said you might want to tackle in 0.9.4. For now, I thought I'd mention some (fairly minor) oversights which I keep noticing when I play Europe maps. First, the French Salon is wrongly enabled at Astronomy instead of Physics. (I think this has already been mentioned.) Second, Maximilian doesn't appear to get +1 happy from the German Rathaus UB for being a Judicial leader. Hopefully you can slot these fixes into 0.9.3. Keep up the good work!
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