I'm glad you liked the ideas I proposed. You make some excellent points in return so let me respond to a few that stand out before I go to bed.
I'd prefer to keep the pillage bonus with Aggressive as it fits much better thematically and with the current selection of Aggressive leaders' AI/personalities. [...]
Free Commando promotion is a very interesting idea. I like it. As I mentioned earlier I think the pillage bonus needs to belong to Aggressive but I'm sure we can come up with something else here for Tactical.
I think I see the issue here: you and I were working under different definitions of Aggressive and Tactical. I saw Aggressive leaders as interested in conquest and personal glory while Tactical leaders accepted warfare as a way of life, hence the raiding and pillaging. So, on my definition, Napoleon would be Aggressive and Montezuma Tactical. You've assigned the traits the other way around (and rather more sensibly, I think.) So how about we switch the proposals for those two traits? I do think +100% pillage gold works better with Commando promotions.
Aggressive: Commando on Melee+Mounted+Gunpowder, +100% pillage gold, double Jail+Castle
Tactical: Combat I on Melee+Mounted+Gunpowder, double Barracks+Stadium, all Military civics available on Turn 0
I completely agree with free Navigation promotions in place of the passive bonus. I'm not sure about unlocking all the Economy civics, that is possibly the most powerful/influential of all civic categories. I like the concept though, I'll need to mull it over some more. [...]
I'm uncertain about unlocking Government civics for similar reasons to the Economic categories. I need to think it through a bit more. The no anarchy bonus is actually a fair bit more powerful in HR than it is in BTS and I suspect that having both of these would be too strong.
I think you're not giving enough credit to your civic choices here. One of the things that drew me to this mod in the first place was what I considered to be very balanced civic options. Thing is, even if you unlock all Economy or Government categories at the start of the game, the best play, nine times out of ten, is still to go with the option appropriate to your time period. You can't say the same for BtS. This is easy to see with the Government civics: Monarchy is your best bet, hands down, for a long, long, time - well after you normally discover many of the other choices. Allowing leaders to adopt Monarchy at T0 (while everyone else gets there ~T20) gives them a significant but not overpowering edge. Especially when you consider you can pick up Property from a tribal village by pure luck!
It's much the same story in the Economy branch. You have a choice between Redistribution (+1c on Camps, Mines); Professionalism (better workshops); Mercantilism (free specialist); Free Markets (+1 trade route); and Environmentalism (massive health; better windmills, forest preserves). In the early game, you'll note that you don't have access to workshops and even when you do they are a weak +1 hammer; you mostly don't have access to specialist slots; you can't trade with anyone; and you can't build windmills or preserves, nor do you have serious health problems. So what choice do you have but Redistribution? Granted, Redistribution on T0 instead of ~T40 is strong, but not too strong.
So I would strongly argue for keeping the Economy and Government branches unlocked for Enterprising and Judicial leaders. I'm less sure of Legal, to be honest; and willing to let that one go without argument.
This trait needs to be completely remade. Stronger vassals is awkward and the bonus to trade routes has caused endless confusion, the mechanics are not very clear and it scales ridiculously well in some situations/maps whilst doing next to nothing in others. I also use this mechanic for the Confederation civic but it works better there as you can choose it when the situation suits. 50% would actually be very overpowered btw, it's calculated on individual trade routes, so on an Archipelago map a city with connections to far away foreign cities could potentially be earning over 20 commerce per trade route!
In the case of trade routes, I think you have the mechanics wrong. Trade route bonuses are
additive not
multiplicative. Take an example.
Foreign Trade Route: +2
+Harbour: +2 + 50% = +3
+Customs House: +2 + 50% + 100% = +2 + 150% = +5
+Overseas: +2 + 150% + 100% = +2 + 250% = +7
+Diplomatic Trait: +2 + 250% + 50% = +2 + 300% = +8
Trade route bonuses always apply to the
base trade route income and are then added up. That's why a +50% bonus from the Diplomatic trait will only ever add 1 commerce to a +2
base trade route and 1.5 commerce to a +3
base trade route (which is only possible with a very large city size, ~25 pop). It's also the reason that the current +15% bonus is entirely meaningless. I can guarantee you will never see anything as crazy as 20 commerce trade routes!
Affecting relations is the obvious choice for this civic but there is the issue where this will do nothing for an AI civ when dealing with the player, thus giving the player a slight advantage. I'm not sure how significant this would be in the scheme of things.
You'll be surprised to hear that I considered this, too. And after thinking about it, I concluded that the bonus
will help an AI leader, even when dealing with a human. First, an AI leader that enjoys better diplomatic relations with other AI leaders will be less likely to be anyone's worst enemy. That means it's more likely that the human will trade, without fear of incurring worst enemy penalties from anyone else. Second, a Diplomatic AI leader will be more likely to be at Pleased or Friendly with multiple others. Once again, that means that the human will be less likely to declare war (or rather, more likely to pick a more isolated target) in order to accumulate fewer "-1 You declared war on our friend" penalties. The effect is subtle, but it's there! (And how appropriate is that!) Of course, if you were gunning for a Conquest victory, you wouldn't care - but then you wouldn't be expected to care about diplomacy.
All in all, I urge you to reconsider your position on my suggestions for the Diplomatic trait.
...And that's all for now. I'm eager to see the list of ideas you put together in your next update.
on barracks
